Woman released from Gaza: Three hostages told us they were sexually abused by their captors

A woman who was released from Gaza says she met three hostages who told her they had been sexually assaulted by their captors, and heard a similar story about a fourth.

“We heard three stories firsthand, and another story that was told to us,” Chen Goldstein-Almog tells the Kan public broadcaster. “Things that happened a few weeks after they arrived in Gaza. They are physically injured.”

“With the way they sexually assaulted them and desecrated their bodies, they don’t know how they will cope,” she says. “If they had been released earlier, they would have been spared. We also saw a guy who was beaten,” she says.

“Everything must be done to get them out,” Goldstein-Almog says.

There have been multiple accounts of rape and sexual assault of women and children by Hamas terrorists on October 7, and at least 10 of the Israeli civilians released by Hamas — both men and women — were sexually assaulted or abused while in captivity.

Goldstein-Almog, 48, and three of her four children, Agam, 17, Gal, 11, and Tal, 9, were released on November 26 as part of a temporary ceasefire deal. Her husband Nadav and eldest daughter Yam were murdered on October 7.