Ex-hostage tells UN she was sexually assaulted by Hamas guard ‘in most horrifying way’
Amit Soussana assails ‘overwhelming silence, even denial’ of atrocities in speech to Security Council; Mia Schem: Captor ‘constantly reminded me he saw me without underwear’
Former hostage Amit Soussana told the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday of the sexual assault she endured in Hamas captivity, urging the international body to protect the remaining captives while assailing the denial of atrocities against them.
In a speech to the UN Security Council, Soussana, who was released in the weeklong November ceasefire, said her captor forced her into the shower and had sexually assaulted her at gunpoint “in the most horrifying way.”
“He was breathing heavily and had a monstrous, beast-like face,” she said, adding that he had planned the assault meticulously, “scheming and waiting for the moment to have his way.”
Soussana said she was “held captive alone, chained by my ankle with a metal chain, unable to move and had to ask for permission to use the bathroom.”
Her captor, she said, “kept asking me private sexual questions while sitting next to me in his underwear, lifting my shirt, touching me and constantly asking me when my period would be over.”
“I knew exactly what he was planning to do, and yet I couldn’t do anything to prevent it,” said Soussana.
Hamas Captivity Survivor Amit Soussana Testifies at UN Security Council
"I urge you, It is your responsibility to protect human rights, to combat terrorism, and to bring those responsible for these heinous crimes to justice. The world is watching, waiting for the UN Security… pic.twitter.com/mtrzCXHVNH
— Bring Them Home Now (@bringhomenow) October 23, 2024
“When the assault was over, I wasn’t even allowed to cry or to be sad,” she said. “I had no one to comfort me, and was forced to be nice to the person who had just sexually assaulted me in the most horrifying way.”
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about what that terrible man did to me, but I keep reminding myself that I am free now and that he can’t hurt me again,” said Soussana.
A few days after the assault, Soussana said, she was moved to a new location with “different heavily armed Hamas terrorists” who tortured her, hung her upside down, and beat and humiliated her.
“Even though I was terrified, I felt fortunate that at least I wasn’t with the man who had sexually violated me,” she said.
“Eventually,” she continued, “I was taken into an underground tunnel, 40 meters [131 feet] deep, a tomb-like space where we felt as if we were buried alive. We were held in such inhumane conditions.”
It was unclear which other hostages Soussana was referring to.
Soussana said she remembered the day of she was snatched from her home in Kfar Aza “vividly.”
The attorney, 40, was one of 251 people kidnapped when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people, sparking the war in Gaza.
“It began as a peaceful Saturday morning, a holiday in Israel,” she said, “but the tranquility was shattered by the sounds of thousands of missiles fired from Gaza, followed by the terrifying approach of heavy gunfire.”
Barricaded in her safe room, Soussana trembled with fear, she said.
“The moment a hand grenade exploded in my living room, my home was invaded by heavily armed men in civilian clothing,” said Soussana.
Barefoot and in pajamas, she took the blanket from her bed to cover her body, and was “dragged from my burning house through the Gaza Strip border, beaten severely along the way.”
“It felt as though they were taking pleasure out of hurting me. They even touched my private body parts as I tried to resist them,” said Soussana.
“I resisted them, though I knew that this might lead to my death, but at this point I was willing to die,” she said. “I feared for my body and soul more than I feared for my life, so I fought back.”
Video from that day showed Soussana desperately trying to escape as she was dragged across fields and into Gaza by a group of men.
“My entire face and my body were bruised and swollen. My eye socket was broken and I sustained a knee injury from which I still suffer,” Soussana told the UN.
“It is your responsibility to protect human rights, to combat terrorism, and to bring those responsible for these heinous crimes to justice,” Soussana told the UN. “The world is watching, waiting for the UN Security Council to live up to its mandate.”
Soussana was one of several survivors of conflict-related sexual violence who addressed the Security Council at a ceremony marking the fifteenth anniversary of the UN’s Mandate on Sexual Violence in Conflict.
She said that by speaking, she was honoring her promise to the other hostages “by telling my story, no matter how painful it is to relive those horrors.”
“I cannot stay silent because of my promise but also because of the overwhelming silence, even denial, of the atrocities that have happened, and continue to happen, to all the hostages still trapped in Gaza, for 383 agonizing days,” she said.
Israel has accused the UN of downplaying the sexual violence during the October 7 onslaught.
Pramila Patten, the UN’s envoy on sex crimes, led a research mission in Israel in January that found evidence of sexual violence both during the shock assault and against the hostages.
Soussana told the UN that she had met with Patten in January, and praised the envoy for keeping her promise “to never give up on securing the release of the hostages.”
Soussana became the first released hostage to speak publicly about being sexually abused while held hostage in Gaza, recounting her ordeal in an interview with the New York Times in March.
Earlier this week, Mia Schem, who was also released in the November ceasefire, said that she was sexually harassed while held in Gaza in Hamas captivity.
In an interview broadcast Sunday on the HOT3 channel, she said she arrived at her captor’s house bleeding profusely and with her arm “not connected,” and that she collapsed on the bathroom floor while trying to insert a tampon.
Subsequently, she said, her captor “constantly reminded me that he saw me without underwear.”
It is believed that 97 of the hostages kidnapped during the Hamas assault on October 7, 2023, remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
