EGN NEWS DESK
Amit Soussana, an Israeli lawyer, was kidnapped from her house on Oct. 7, crushed and dragged into Gaza by no less than 10 males, some armed. Several days into her captivity, she stated, her guard started asking about her intercourse life.
Ms. Soussana stated she was held alone in a baby’s bed room, chained by her left ankle. Sometimes, the guard would enter, sit beside her on the mattress, elevate her shirt and contact her, she stated.
He additionally repeatedly requested when her interval was due. When her interval ended, round Oct. 18, she tried to place him off by pretending that she was bleeding for almost every week, she recalled.
Around Oct. 24, the guard, who referred to as himself Muhammad, attacked her, she stated.
Early that morning, she stated, Muhammad unlocked her chain and left her within the rest room. After she undressed and commenced washing herself within the bathtub, Muhammad returned and stood within the doorway, holding a pistol.
“He got here in the direction of me and shoved the gun at my brow,” Ms. Soussana recalled throughout eight hours of interviews with The New York Times in mid-March. After hitting Ms. Soussana and forcing her to take away her towel, Muhammad groped her, sat her on the sting of the tub and hit her once more, she stated.
He dragged her at gunpoint again to the kid’s bed room, a room coated in photographs of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, she recalled.
“Then he, with the gun pointed at me, pressured me to commit a sexual act on him,” Ms. Soussana stated.
Ms. Soussana, 40, is the primary Israeli to talk publicly about being sexually assaulted throughout captivity after the Hamas-led raid on southern Israel. In her interviews with The Times, carried out largely in English, she supplied intensive particulars of sexual and different violence she suffered throughout a 55-day ordeal.
Ms. Soussana’s private account of her expertise in captivity is in keeping with what she advised two docs and a social employee lower than 24 hours after she was freed on Nov. 30. Their reviews about her account state the character of the sexual act; The Times agreed to not disclose the specifics.
Ms. Soussana described being detained in roughly half a dozen websites, together with personal houses, an workplace and a subterranean tunnel. Later in her detention, she stated, a gaggle of captors suspended her throughout the hole between two couches and beat her.
For months, Hamas and its supporters have denied that its members sexually abused folks in captivity or throughout the Oct. 7 terrorist assault. This month, a United Nations report stated that there was “clear and convincing data” that some hostages had suffered sexual violence and there have been “cheap grounds” to imagine sexual violence occurred throughout the raid, whereas acknowledging the “challenges and limitations” of analyzing the difficulty.
After being launched together with 105 different hostages throughout a cease-fire in late November, Ms. Soussana spoke solely in obscure phrases publicly about her remedy within the Gaza Strip, cautious of recounting such a traumatic expertise. When filmed by Hamas minutes earlier than being freed, she stated, she pretended to have been handled effectively to keep away from jeopardizing her launch.
Ms. Soussana stated she had determined to talk out now to boost consciousness concerning the plight of the hostages nonetheless in Gaza, whose quantity has been put at greater than 100, as negotiations for a cease-fire falter.
Hours after her launch, Ms. Soussana spoke with a senior Israeli gynecologist, Dr. Julia Barda, and a social employee, Valeria Tsekhovsky, concerning the sexual assault, the 2 ladies stated in separate interviews with The Times. A medical report filed collectively by them, and reviewed by The Times, briefly summarizes her account.
“Amit spoke instantly, fluently and intimately, not solely about her sexual assault but additionally concerning the many different ordeals she skilled,” Dr. Barda stated.
The following day, on Dec. 1, Ms. Soussana shared her expertise with a physician from Israel’s National Center of Forensic Medicine, in line with the middle’s medical report, which was reviewed by The Times.
Siegal Sadetzki, a professor at Tel Aviv University medical college who helps and advising Ms. Soussana’s household as a volunteer, stated Ms. Soussana first advised her concerning the sexual assault inside days of her launch. Professor Sadetzki, a former high Israeli well being official, stated Ms. Soussana’s accounts have remained constant.
Ms. Soussana additionally spoke to the U.N. staff that revealed the report on sexual violence, however The Times was unable to evaluation her testimony.
A spokesman for Hamas, Basem Naim, stated in a 1,300-word response to The Times that it was important for the group to analyze Ms. Soussana’s allegations, however that such an inquiry was inconceivable in “the present circumstances.”
Mr. Naim solid doubt on Ms. Soussana’s account, questioning why she had not spoken publicly concerning the extent of her mistreatment. He stated the extent of element in her account makes “it tough to imagine the story, except it was designed by some safety officers.”
“For us, the human physique, and particularly that of the girl, is sacred,” he stated, including that Hamas’s spiritual beliefs “forbade any mistreatment of any human being, no matter his intercourse, faith or ethnicity.”
Mr. Naim criticized The Times for inadequate protection of Palestinian struggling, together with reviews of sexual assault by Israeli troopers on Palestinian ladies, which have been the topic of investigations by U.N. officers, rights teams and others. He additionally stated “civilian hostages weren’t the goal” of the raid and stated “now we have from the primary second declared our readiness to launch them.”
A Hamas planning doc present in one village shortly after the Oct. 7 raid, which was reviewed by The Times, stated: “Take troopers and civilians as prisoners and hostages to barter with.” Video from Oct. 7 exhibits uniformed Hamas militants abducting civilians.
The Abduction
Ms. Soussana lived alone in a cramped single-story house on the western facet of Kibbutz Kfar Azza. After listening to sirens warning of rocket assaults on Oct. 7, she stated, she sheltered in her bed room, which was additionally a bolstered secure room. From her bed room, Ms. Soussana listened because the attackers’ gunfire grew nearer.
The small kibbutz stands roughly 1.5 miles from Gaza, and it was one in every of greater than 20 Israeli villages, cities and armed forces bases overrun that day by 1000’s who surged throughout the Gazan border shortly after daybreak. Some 1,200 folks had been killed that day and about 250 kidnapped, Israeli officers say, setting off a struggle in Gaza that native well being officers say has killed no less than 31,000 Palestinians.
Ms. Soussana was on the kibbutz nearly by likelihood. Sick with a fever, she had been recuperating yesterday within the close by metropolis of Sderot, together with her mom, Mira, who pressed her to remain the night time. But Ms. Soussana drove house to Kfar Azza to feed her three cats, she stated.
The youngest of three sisters, Ms. Soussana had grown up in Sderot. She certified as a lawyer at an area school and labored for a legislation agency specializing in mental property. Her colleagues thought of her a diligent, quiet and personal one who stored her distance, her supervisor, Oren Mendler, stated in an interview. In Kfar Azza, Ms. Soussana stated, she hardly ever concerned herself in village life and was not a part of the native WhatsApp teams, which left her unaware of the extent of the assault on the kibbutz.
At 9:46 a.m. that day, she heard gunmen outdoors, prompting her to cover inside her bed room closet, in line with messages on her household WhatsApp group reviewed by The Times. Twenty minutes later, her cellphone died.
Moments later, “I heard an explosion, an enormous explosion,” she stated. “And the second after that, somebody opened the closet door.”
Dragged from the closet, she stated, she noticed roughly 10 males rifling via her belongings, armed with assault rifles, a grenade launcher and a machete.
Part of the home was on hearth — a blaze that might spoil the constructing.
Over the following hour, the group dragged her via a close-by subject towards Gaza. Security footage from a photo voltaic farm close to the kibbutz, which was extensively circulated on the web, exhibits the group repeatedly tackling her to the bottom as they struggled to restrain her. At one level, a kidnapper picked her up and slung her throughout his again. The video exhibits her flailing so laborious, her legs thrashing within the air, that the person tumbled to the bottom.
“I didn’t need to allow them to take me to Gaza like an object, with no battle,” stated Ms. Soussana. “I nonetheless stored believing that somebody will come and rescue me.”
The Abuser
The kidnappers tried to restrain her by beating her and wrapping her in a white material, the video exhibits. Unable to subdue her, the attackers tried and failed to hold her by bicycle, she stated. Finally, they sure her arms and ft and dragged her throughout the bumpy farmland into Gaza, she stated.
She was badly wounded, bleeding closely, with a cut up lip, she stated. The hospital report ready shortly after her launch stated that she returned to Israel with fractures in her proper eye socket, cheek, knee and nostril and extreme bruising on her knee and again. The report acknowledged that a number of accidents had been associated to her abduction on Oct. 7, together with punches to her proper eye.
After reaching the sting of Gaza, Ms. Soussana stated, she was shoved right into a ready automotive and pushed a couple of hundred yards into the outskirts of Gaza City. She was untied, wearing a paramilitary uniform and transferred to a different automotive stuffed with uniformed militants. A hood was positioned over her head, although she may nonetheless catch glimpses of her environment from below it, she stated. After a brief drive, she was hurried up a staircase and onto a rooftop, she stated.
After the hood was eliminated, Ms. Soussana stated, she discovered herself in a small construction constructed on the roof of what she would later notice was an upscale personal house. She remembered that militants had been busy taking extra weapons from a field. Then the gunmen hurried downstairs, and he or she was left alone, going through a wall, with a person who stated he was the proprietor of the home and referred to as himself Mahmoud, she recalled.
“After a few minutes, he stated I can flip round,” Ms. Soussana stated. “And I used to be shocked,” she added. “I discover myself sitting in a home in Gaza.”
She stated Mahmoud was quickly joined by a youthful man, Muhammad. She remembered Muhammad as a chubby, balding man of common top with a large nostril.
Later that day, they dressed her in a thick brown garment that coated her physique, she stated. They gave her three capsules, which they stated had been painkillers. It was the one time that she remembers receiving any type of medication in Gaza, not to mention medical remedy.
Fitted with a fan and a tv, the room appeared to have been ready for her arrival, she stated. There had been three mattresses, she stated, one for her and two for the guards.
Early in her captivity, her guards chained her ankle to the window body, she stated. Around Oct. 11, she stated, she was led by the chain to a bed room downstairs. She understood that it belonged to one in every of Mahmoud’s sons, and that his household had been moved to a different place.
The chain was reattached to the door deal with, she stated, subsequent to a mirror. For the primary time since her seize, she may see what she appeared like.
“I noticed the chains and I noticed that my face was all swollen and blue,” she stated.
“And I simply began to cry,” she stated. “This was one of many lowest moments of my life.”
The Jail
For the following two and a half weeks in October, Ms. Soussana stated, she was guarded solely by Muhammad.
She recalled that the room was nearly completely shrouded in darkness. The curtain was normally drawn shut and there have been rolling energy outages for many of the day, she stated.
She stated Muhammad slept outdoors the bed room, within the adjoining front room, however steadily entered the bed room in his underwear, asking about her intercourse life and providing to therapeutic massage her physique.
When he took her to the toilet, Ms. Soussana stated, he refused to let her shut the door. After giving her sanitary pads, Muhammad appeared significantly within the timing of her interval, she stated. She stated she had spoken in a mixture of primary English and Arabic; she had realized a little bit Arabic at college and her mom’s household — Jews from Iraq — had typically spoken it throughout her childhood.
“Every day, he would ask: ‘Did you get your interval? Did you get your interval? When you get your interval, when it will likely be over, you’ll wash, you’ll take a bathe and you’ll wash your garments,’” Ms. Soussana recalled.
When it arrived, Ms. Soussana stated, she was exhausted, afraid and undernourished; her interval lasted simply at some point. She managed to persuade him that her menstruation continued for almost every week, she stated.
She tried to humanize herself in his eyes by asking the that means of Arabic phrases she heard on tv. She additionally promised that her household would reward him financially if she was returned with out additional hurt to Israel, she stated.
In the afternoons, two associates of Muhammad would be part of him on the residence, bringing him a cooked meal, she stated. Some of this meals was given to her as her one meal of the day.
The Israeli strikes on the neighborhood turned extra frequent and scary, Ms. Soussana stated, noting that some shattered the home windows. As the bombing intensified, she stated, she began feeling sorry for the civilians, questioning why Hamas had by no means constructed bomb shelters for its folks.
“I felt for them,” Ms. Soussana stated. “Just take into consideration rising up like this — it’s scary.”
The Assault
Early on the morning of the assault, she stated, Muhammad insisted she take a bathe, however she refused, saying the water was chilly. Undeterred, he unchained Ms. Soussana and introduced her to the kitchen and confirmed her a pot of water boiling on the range, she stated.
Minutes later, he introduced her to the toilet and gave her the heated water to pour over herself, she stated.
After washing for a couple of minutes, she heard his voice once more from the door, she stated.
“‘Quickly, Amit, rapidly,’” she recalled him saying.
“I rotated and I noticed him standing there,” she stated. “With the gun.”
She remembered reaching for a hand towel to cowl herself as he superior and hit her.
“He stated, ‘Amit, Amit, take it off,’” she recalled. “Finally, I took it off.”
“He sat me on the sting of the tub. And I closed my legs. And I resisted. And he stored punching me and put his gun in my face,” Ms. Soussana stated. “Then he dragged me to the bed room.”
At that time, Muhammad pressured her to commit a sexual act on him, Ms. Soussana stated. After the assault, Muhammad left the room to clean, leaving Ms. Soussana sitting bare in the dead of night, she stated.
When he returned, she recalled him exhibiting regret, saying, “I’m dangerous, I’m dangerous, please don’t inform Israel.”
That day, Muhammad repeatedly returned to supply her meals, Ms. Soussana stated. Sobbing on the mattress, she turned down the preliminary choices, she stated.
Knowing that Ms. Soussana craved daylight, she stated, he refused to open the curtains, leaving the room in darkness. Desperate for daylight, she accepted the meals, believing that she had no different choice however to placate her abuser.
“You can’t stand taking a look at him — however you must: He’s the one who’s defending you, he’s your guard,” she stated. “You’re there with him and you realize that each second it will probably occur once more. You’re fully depending on him.”
The Israelis
Ms. Soussana stated her captors moved her away from the border after a significant, hourslong bombardment in a single day. Based on the extent of the explosions and snippets she caught on tv, she later concluded it was across the begin of Israel’s floor invasion of Gaza on Friday, Oct. 27.
On the next day, she was hurried right into a small white automotive, she stated. The driver headed southwest towards what she would later be advised was the central metropolis of Nuseirat.
“Muhammad is sitting within the again seat subsequent to me, and with the gun pointed at me,” she stated.
The automotive stopped outdoors what appeared like a United Nations college and Ms. Soussana was ushered right into a busy avenue, she recalled.
She stated she was handed over to a person who referred to as himself Amir. He marched her up the steps of a close-by residence block and into one other personal house, she stated.
For the primary time in weeks, she was freed from Muhammad — however terrified to be coming into one more unknown. “‘Oh my God,’” she remembered questioning. “‘What’s going to occur to me?’”
The man ushered her right into a bed room and shut the door behind her, she recalled. Inside, she discovered two younger ladies enjoying playing cards, subsequent to an older man mendacity on a mattress and an older girl sitting in a chair, she stated. Ms. Soussana was sporting conventional garments from Gaza, she recalled.
“They checked out me and I checked out them, for like half a minute,” she stated. “Then I requested, ‘Are you Israelis?’”
“Are you Israeli?” Ms. Soussana remembered one of many ladies replying.
The Tunnels
Three weeks after her kidnapping, Ms. Soussana had been united with 4 different hostages. Hugging them, Ms. Soussana broke down in tears, she stated.
The identities of the 4 others had been shared with The Times on the situation that their names wouldn’t be used to guard these nonetheless in captivity.
A couple of days after her arrival, she was summoned to the residence’s front room, Ms. Soussana recalled. Amir usually performed right here along with his kids.
On that day, the guards wrapped her head in a pink shirt, pressured her to sit down on the ground, handcuffed her, and commenced beating her with the butt of a gun, she stated.
After a number of minutes, they used duct tape to cowl her mouth and nostril, tied her ft, and positioned {the handcuffs} on the bottom of her palms, she stated. Then she was suspended, hanging “like a hen” from a stick stretching between two couches, inflicting her such ache that she felt that her arms would quickly be dislocated.
They carried on beating and kicking her, specializing in the soles of her ft, whereas concurrently demanding data they believed she was hiding from them, Ms. Soussana stated.
She nonetheless doesn’t perceive what precisely they needed or why they thought she was concealing one thing, she stated. At one level, the top guard introduced over a spike, and made as if to poke her eye with it, pulling away simply in time, she stated.
“It was like that for 45 minutes or so,” she stated. “They had been hitting me and laughing and kicking me, and referred to as the opposite hostages to see me,” she stated.
Ms. Soussana recalled that the abductors untied her and returned her to the bed room, telling her she had 40 minutes to supply the knowledge they needed or else they’d kill her. She stated one of many younger ladies was so frightened that she requested Ms. Soussana if she had any final messages for her household.
In mid-November, the hostages had been separated: The two youngest ladies had been taken to an unknown location, she stated, whereas Ms. Soussana and the older couple had been pushed to a home surrounded by farmland.
They discovered the home stuffed with gunmen, who ordered them to sit down on the ground. Suddenly, the older girl started to scream, Ms. Soussana stated.
The girl was trying right into a shaft that descended into the bottom, Ms. Soussana stated. “I hear one of many drivers telling her: ‘Don’t fear, don’t fear. It’s a metropolis down there.’”
“Then I noticed,” Ms. Soussana stated. “We’re going into the tunnels.”
The Release
A ladder, a number of stairs and a sequence of slim sloping passageways led the three hostages deep underground, she stated.
By the time they reached the underside, the guards stated they had been 40 meters deep, one thing they hoped would reassure the hostages, she stated: The Israeli bombs couldn’t attain them there.
Ms. Soussana stated an enormous gunman in a masks was ready for them on the backside. Initially, he began shouting at them, telling them that Israel had killed his household, she stated, however then rapidly stopped, eliminated his masks and took a distinct tone.
She stated the person launched himself in English as Jihad and advised them his father had labored in Israel and had even had his Israeli boss to dinner, within the years when Israeli civilians may nonetheless enter Gaza. He spoke in Hebrew at instances. Jihad stated he had realized some from watching Israeli tv and sang them a well-known music that he had heard on a kids’s present, Ms. Soussana remembered.
“I used to be shocked,” Ms. Soussana stated. “Suddenly, he was probably the most humane man we met there.”
The floor shook each time a missile struck close by, making her concern they could be buried alive, she stated. The tunnels had been darkish, damp and too slim for 2 folks to move one another. And their subterranean cell was so in need of air that they had been left dizzy and panting after taking a couple of steps, she stated.
Israeli troops would later seize and {photograph} the tunnel. Ms. Soussana recognized materials and mattresses within the footage.
Their captors spent little greater than an hour a day within the tunnel, ascending to larger ranges in a single day for contemporary air, Ms. Soussana stated. The hostages pleaded with the guards to deliver them, too.
After a number of days, the abductors gave in, introduced them again to the floor and drove them to a different personal home, Ms. Soussana stated.
They had been nonetheless there when Israel and Hamas agreed to a hostage deal and a brief truce, which went into pressure on Friday, Nov. 24. The following day, the three hostages had been pushed to an workplace in Gaza City — Ms. Soussana’s remaining detention web site.
Every day introduced hope and disappointment. It was by no means clear which hostages could be freed, or when.
On Thursday, Nov. 30, which turned out to be the final full day of the truce, the guards had been making lunch when one in every of them completed a cellphone name and turned to Amit.
“He says: ‘Amit. Israel. You. One hour,’” Ms. Soussana recalled.
Within an hour, Ms. Soussana stated, she was separated from the older hostage and pushed via Gaza City. The automotive stopped, and a lady in a hijab climbed inside. It was one other Israeli hostage: Mia Schem, who was additionally being launched.
They had been taken to a junkyard, Ms. Soussana recalled. Around them, she stated, their guards modified from civilian garments into uniforms.
Finally, the 2 ladies had been pushed to Palestine Square, a significant plaza on the coronary heart of Gaza City, the place a raucous crowd waited to see them handed over to the Red Cross. Social media video confirmed that Hamas struggled to manage the onlookers, who surrounded the automotive, pressed up in opposition to its home windows and at one level started to rock the automobile, Ms. Soussana stated.
After a tense jiffy, the Red Cross officers managed to switch the ladies to their jeep.
As they approached the Israeli border, a feminine Red Cross official handed Ms. Soussana a cellphone. An individual who stated he was a soldier greeted her in Hebrew.
“He stated, ‘A pair extra minutes and we’re going to fulfill you,’” Ms. Soussana stated. “I keep in mind, I began to cry.”
Aaron Boxerman and Isabel Kershner contributed reporting.
