Israel report to UN says freed Gaza hostages faced physical, sexual abuse
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Hostages being handed over by Hamas militants to the International Red Cross during a brief ceasefire, at an unknown location in the Gaza Strip in November 2023.
PHOTO: REUTERS
JERUSALEM – An Israeli government report set to be submitted to the United Nations this week says that hostages, including children, freed in 2023 from Gaza endured physical and sexual abuse during their captivity.
The report from the Israeli Health Ministry, which it said was based on testimonies from released captives, details incidents of individuals being burned, beaten and deliberately starved by their Hamas captors.
The findings will be presented this week to Dr Alice Jill Edwards, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, the ministry said in a statement.
The report said some of the hostages, including children, were “sexually assaulted or forced to undress, including at gunpoint”.
Women hostages described being “tied to beds while their captors stared at them”, while men also reported severe abuses, the report said.
Israel has previously presented reports and released testimonies from hostages detailing sexual abuses in captivity, which Hamas has consistently denied.
Some former hostages have spoken publicly. Earlier in 2024, freed hostage Amit Soussana told the New York Times of how she was forced to perform “a sexual act” on one of her captors.
The latest report from the Health Ministry also said male captives “endured severe physical abuse, including continuous starvation, beatings, burns with galvanised iron... and being denied access to the bathroom, which forced them to defecate on themselves”.
Israeli Health Minister Uriel Busso said in a statement released alongside the report that it was “a harrowing testimony to the brutal experiences suffered by the hostages in Hamas captivity”.
“The horrors the hostages endured reveals to the world the brutality of the enemy with whom Israel is engaged,” he said.
‘Wake-up call’
Mr Busso called the testimonies a wake-up call for the international community to intensify pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages in Gaza.
During their attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants seized 251 hostages.
Eighty Israelis were among 105 captives released during a one-week truce late in 2023, the only truce in over 14 months of war between Israel and Hamas that began after the attack.
Ninety-six hostages remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
In recent weeks, progress has been reported in efforts to reach a new deal that would release the remaining hostages and bring a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
“This critical report underscores the urgent need to release all hostages as swiftly as possible,” Mr Moshe Bar-Siman-Tov, the health ministry’s director-general, said.
Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the report painted “a grim reality of the physical abuse and psychological torment” endured by the hostages.
It urged a comprehensive deal “to secure the immediate release of all hostages”. AFP
