Amit Soussana: Government hasn’t internalized what hostages are enduring in Gaza

Released hostage Amit Soussana laments in a Channel 12 interview that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has not internalized what the remaining hostages are going through in Gaza.

Speaking after winning the State Department’s 2025 International Award for Women yesterday, Soussana says it was hard for her to see the Trump administration’s commitment to the plight of the hostages, only to get back to her hotel after the ceremony and see that the IDF was further intensifying its military operations in Gaza, putting the hostages at risk.

The Israeli government is supposed to understand the plight of the hostages better than any other government, and yet it is acting against their interests, Soussana says.

“I don’t want want to imagine what they’re feeling there,” Soussana says, adding that the hope that the government is working to secure their release is the only thing that keeps hostages going and realizing that they are not being freed after two hostage deals breaks the heart of those left behind.

“To survive for so many days only to be killed by bombing, specifically by the IDF, breaks the heart,” Soussana says.

She reveals that Netanyahu has not reached out to her since she came forward in March 2024 about the sexual assault she endured while in captivity, and that, other than the foreign minister, no one from the government has.

Soussana says she thought coming forward would change the government’s approach, “but in practice, it didn’t change anything.”