'Dolls on a string'...the horrors of Hamas hostage camps
A protestor flashes a message in Hebrew reading in English "there is no time", during a rally organised by family and supporters of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since the October 7 attacks by Hamas in southern Israel, to demand their release, on January 22, 2024, near the residence of the Israeli prime minister in Jerusalem. PHOTO | AFP
What you need to know:
- "I was there 51 days and there wasn't a moment that we didn't go through abuse of any kind," Aviva Siegel, who was taken hostage on October 7, said on Tuesday.
- Chen Goldstein-Almog, another freed hostage, said she had seen fellow female hostages miss periods during their captivity.
Two freed Israeli women hostages have given testimony to a group of lawmakers on the abuse they experienced while being held captive by Hamas militants in Gaza.
"I was there 51 days and there wasn't a moment that we didn't go through abuse of any kind," Aviva Siegel, who was taken hostage on October 7, said on Tuesday.
Siegel, 62, told the hearing on sexual violence during the Israel-Hamas conflict that militants had turned both women and men hostages into "dolls on a string that they can do with them what they please, whenever they please".
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on January 21, 2024 shows an underground cell with a makeshift bed and a sink, which Israeli forces said they have discovered during a raid in an underground tunnel in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. PHOTO | ISRAELI ARMY | AFP
"I saw it with my own eyes. I didn't just see, I felt the women as if they were my daughters," she said.
Siegel said male hostages were suffering equally in captivity.
"The men are also going through what the women are experiencing. They may not be getting pregnant but they are also dolls on a string," she said.
Chen Goldstein-Almog, another freed hostage, said she had seen fellow female hostages miss periods during their captivity.
She said this may have been due to "the difficult conditions in captivity", but added that she feared that "heaven forbid they get pregnant".
A protestor flashes a message in Hebrew reading in English "there is no time", during a rally organised by family and supporters of Israeli hostages on January 22, 2024. PHOTO | AHMAD GHARABLI | AFP
The biggest fear the captives had was of being abandoned by the Israeli authorities, added Goldstein-Almog, 48.
"The feeling there is that you're forgotten, that they've given up on you," she told the meeting via video link.
Both women were freed during a seven-day humanitarian pause in late November that led to the release of 80 Israeli hostages in exchange for aid deliveries into Gaza and the freeing of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Soldiers visit a tunnel that Hamas reportedly used to attack Israel through the Erez border crossing on October 7.
Their brief remarks add to a growing number of accounts of sexual violence emerging from Hamas's October 7 attacks and against hostages held for months by the Palestinian militant group.
But scarcity of survivor testimonies and forensic evidence made it difficult to assess the scale of sexual violence in the attacks.
Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, carried out an unprecedented attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The Israeli army said on December 17, 2023 it had uncovered the biggest Hamas tunnel in the Gaza Strip so far, just a few hundred metres from the Erez border crossing.
During the attack Palestinian militants also seized about 250 hostages.
Israel says around 132 remain in besieged Gaza, including the bodies of at least 28 dead hostages, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli data.
Fourteen women hostages are still being held in Gaza, according to an AFP tally.
The Israeli army said on December 17, 2023 it had uncovered the biggest Hamas tunnel in the Gaza Strip so far, just a few hundred metres from the Erez border crossing.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met a group of freed hostages last month, saying after the meeting that he had been told "about cases of sexual abuse and cruel rapes".
In response to the attack, Israel has launched a relentless offensive in Gaza that has killed at least 25,490 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest toll issued Tuesday by Gaza's health ministry.
