AS Israeli missiles blitzed Gaza day after day, it wasn’t the risk of being killed that terrified hostages.
It was the fear of being raped by depraved Hamas thugs.
Armed Palestinian militants stormed the Supernova music festival at dawn[/caption]
Amit Soussna, pictured being dragged away by Hamas thugs, has spoken about her ordeal[/caption]
The aftermath of the music festival were people were killed and attacked[/caption]
A house that was destroyed by Hamas in Be’eri[/caption]
Women, children and men were brutalised by Hamas terrorists from the moment they swept across the border amid the October 7 atrocity and unleashed total hell on Israel.
Vile terrorists captured 251 hostages, many of who were subjected to unspeakably warped treatment – including sexual violence.
Harrowing evidence of sexual abuse has been collected – painting a damning picture of the callous actions of Hamas brutes both on October 7 and in the 16 months since.
Brave victims such as Amit Soussna have spoken out about their ordeal since their release.
And witness accounts reveal the true horrors of Hamas’ campaign of intimidation – including of two teenagers who were forced to perform sexual acts on each other and abused by their captor.
With the final hostages now being released amid a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, more and more shocking testimonies are coming to light.
At least 70 hostages still remain captive in Gaza 500 days on from October 7 amid fears for their health.
But Israeli professor Yifat Bitton told The Sun that with dozens of victims killed and held in solitude, and crucial evidence destroyed, the real extent of Hamas’ crimes may never be revealed.
Evidence of sexual violence on October 7
The eyes of the world turned to the Middle East on October 7, 2023, as callous Hamas terrorists launched a horrifying raid on Israel.
Unforgiving thugs tore through kibbutzes, military bases and a festival – killing more than 1,200 people.
The attack caught Israel off guard as gun-toting Hamas killers wreaked havoc across the border.
Brutal gunmen not only killed their victims, but also subjected many of them to monstrous sexual violence.
In some haunting cases, women were raped, mutilated and murdered.
Footage shot the day after October 7 by a woman searching for her missing friend at the scene of the Nova festival, where hundreds were massacred, provides one of the most key pieces of evidence of sexual violence by Hamas.
The traumatic, grainy clip, showed a woman laying on her back with her dress torn, legs apart and her vagina exposed.
Her right hand covered her eyes, and her face burnt beyond recognition.
Known initially as “the woman in the black dress”, her identity was later revealed as mum-of-two Gal Abdush.
Panicked Gal had become trapped on Route 232 as she and thousands of others frantically tried to flee the festival.
A tragic final WhatsApp message to her family read: “You don’t understand.”
Israeli police officials believe she was raped before she was killed.
Supernova massacre survivor Yuval Sharvit Trabelsi meanwhile told how she witnessed rape while trying to escape.
In a video broadcast at an October 7 memorial at Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park, she said: “We saw murder, kidnappings, but the hardest of them all was rape.
“I have never heard screams for help like the ones I heard from that woman.”
She went on to recount how she smeared herself with her husband’s blood so that the terrorists would think she was dead.
The Nova festival memorial site[/caption]
Soldiers are pictured as they secure the site of the festival and begin to count bodies[/caption]
Professor Bitton, who compiled a compelling report on how Hamas weaponised sexual violence on October 7, said much of the evidence of rape was missed initially as areas attacked were treated as war zones, rather than crime scenes.
First responders prioritised saving lives and taking the bodies of the hundreds and hundreds of victims for identification.
But in the aftermath of the bloodbath, Professor Bitton said there were clear indicators of widespread sexual violence – with underwear and condoms found.
She said: “There was a first responder, who is a very high commander in the police, in the field and she said that while she was rushing to save lives she saw scattered underwear.
“And when I asked her ‘what did you think of it, did you report it to anyone’ she said ‘I couldn’t think of anything other than just saving lives’.
“And then in the Shura camp, where the bodies were brought to in their hundreds, there was a physician who said she saw some of the bodies arrive without underwear.
“But again, identification was the main priority”.
Israeli police have admitted that they were not focussed on collecting samples from bodies, examining crime scenes or requesting autopsies, but instead fixated on Id’ing those killed – and fending off Hamas.
Hamas has repeatedly tried to deny accounts of sexual violence.
But sickening footage revealed a father and son from the terrorist group brazenly admitting to raping and murdering innocent women.
Evil Jamal Hussein Ahmad Radi, 47, and his twisted 18-year-old son Abdallah told Israeli investigators of their despicable crimes after being captured by IDF forces in Gaza.
Radi told how he unleashed terror in the Nir Oz kibbutz and attacked helpless families.
Israeli soldiers inspect houses destroyed by Hamas militants kibbutz Nir Oz[/caption]
Evil Hamas father Jamal Hussein Ahmad Radi admitted to raping a woman as she screamed[/caption]
He admitted: “In each house where we found someone, we either killed them or kidnapped them.
“In the first house I found a woman and her husband, and we hit them with fire and killed them – they were in their late 40s.”
Warped Radi also confessed to raping women.
Speaking about one incident, he said: “She was screaming, she was crying, I did what I did, I raped her.
“I threatened her with my gun to take her clothes off, I remember she was wearing jean shorts, that’s about it.”
Hostages raped & sexually abused by captors
Terrified hostages were subjected to beatings, verbal abuse and in some cases sexual violence from the moment they were captured.
Having just witnessed the callous slayings of their families and friends in Israel, as well as the destruction of their homes, they endured Hamas’ tortuous actions.
Not even children were not exempt from Hamas’ sick abuse.
Victims have told how they were forced to undress at gunpoint and were subject to branding, food and water deprivation, hair-pulling, and isolation.
Survivor Amit Soussana courageously gave a detailed account of her 55-day ordeal that saw her chained, tortured and sexually assaulted.
Haunting footage showed brave lawyer Amit being hauled away by Hamas brutes as she desperately tried to escape.
She was overpowered by a group of men, who forced her to Gaza – where she was taken to a house and guarded by two men.
Amit said tied up by an iron chain to bars on a window for three weeks and sexually abused “under the threat of a gun” by one of her captors after taking a shower.
Amit Soussana talks in front of her destroyed home at the Kibbutz Kfar Aza[/caption]
Mia Schem is reunited with her family following 55 days in Hamas captivity on November 30, 2023[/caption]
She told The Times last year: “I got up, took the small towel and covered myself.
“He came over with the gun to my head, trying to tear the towel away, but I wouldn’t let him.
“He punched me and I still wouldn’t let him.”
Amit then described how the guard, Mohammad, took her into a children’s room in the house where he forced her to perform a sexual act.
Her captors then continued to humiliate her for days on end, forcing Amit to get dressed fast and also clean for their amusement.
Mia Schem has also recalled the horrors she faced during her 54 days in captivity – describing her ordeal “the holocaust”.
The Israeli-French tattoo artist was dragged back to Gaza after being snatched by Hamas from the Supernova music festival.
In a harrowing testimony, Mia said she was operated with no anaesthetic or painkillers for a gunshot wound on her arm.
Mia was released in November 2023 during a brief ceasefire between Hamas and Israel – and is still coming to terms with the abuse she suffered.
We saw murder, kidnappings, but the hardest of them all was rape. I have never heard screams for help like the ones I heard from that woman.
October 7 survivor
Professor Bitton – who founded Tmura, which advocates for the rights of women who have suffered abuse – said: “Some of the testimonies that we have are the type that it takes time to understand and realise what they mean.
“When Mia Schem got back, with time she started providing more and more information about incidents that she had.
“One of them was, for example, that when she was abducted and put in a car, the terrorist next to her rubbed her chest while she was being taken hostage.”
During her time in captivity, Mia was forced to live with her evil captor and his wife, who she described as “a bad woman” with “such mean eyes”.
Professor Bitton added: “She was very specific about an incident when she was trying to insert a tampon, and they – a man and woman – were with her.
“She fainted because it was so painful [trying to insert it] with her wounded hand.
“She was then mentally tortured by the man who told her that he had seen her naked because she fainted without her panties on.”
Mia previously said her captor “looked at you 2/4, raping you with his eyes”.
“His wife was outside the room with the children. That was the only reason he didn’t rape me,” she added.
A disturbing report by Israel’s health ministry also revealed how teenagers and children also suffered Hamas’ torture.
Two children were bound together by their hands and feet and forced to perform sex acts on each other.
They were also cruelly sexually abused by their captors – including having their genitals whipped.
The report, which was prepared for the United Nations, added: “Additionally, two young children had burn marks on their lower limbs.
“One child stated that the burns were the result of a deliberate branding with a heated object.
“Both the child and adults who were with him in captivity described the incident as a purposeful branding event, not an accident.
“It was described as an extremely traumatic experience.”
How the October 7 massacre unfolded
THE horror October 7 massacre in 2023 was the catalyst that plunged the Middle East into war.
That day, more than 1,200 civilians, soldiers and foreign nationals inside Israel were savagely murdered in a hideous early-morning assault.
Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel from Gaza, firing thousands of rockets, flying over in paragliders and bulldozing through in trucks in over 100 different places across the border.
Countless homes were razed to the ground – and 251 hostages were dragged back across the border to Gaza.
An IDF report found that 6,000 fighters from Gaza managed to get into Israel that day – including 3,800 from the Hamas terror group’s elite Nukhba forces.
Horrifying reports that followed October 7 revealed children were killed, women were raped and around 250 had been kidnapped and taken back to Gaza.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu declared “we are at war” following the ambush – and said the military would “turn Gaza into a deserted island” and urged its residents to “leave now”.
Men were also subjected to callous acts – including being shot in their genitals.
Both female and male survivors have struggled to come forward have been reluctant to come forward, believing their traumatic experience pales against those murdered, Professor Bitton said.
And countless Israeli women are too scared to return to their homes close to the border amid fear of being attacked in the wake of October 7.
Professor Bitton said: “My initial thought was that for victims of this type of sexual abuse by terrorists, the enemy, they would be more motivated to come forward.
“And with time it’s becoming so much clearer that the opposite is true for a few reasons.
“First of all, we have the layers of trauma that are the more traumatic the incident was, the less likely it is for the victim to speak up.
“We know that this is a psychological relation or correlation between the two and people who were kept hostage.
“So you have the trauma first of all of them being part of the terrorist attack. Many endured other losses, they saw their friends being murdered in front of their eyes.
“And then they’re being beaten, starved, treated as animals being locked in a cage and being sexually assaulted.
“So the layers of trauma that you endure are very much hampering your ability to speak up about what you’ve gone through.
“We’ve had some hostages saying that they don’t feel they have the right to complain about being sexually abused when people are being murdered.
“And given the denialism and silencing and so on, we’ve got a second layer of bad experience that we’ve had with this in this respect of denialism.”
Professor Bitton said the full extend of Hamas’ vile campaign of sexual violence will never be known – but that it is important this atrocity is never forgotten.
“We know that it happened,” she said.
“But we can’t really tell the extent, because there’s an obliteration of evidence or most of the victims are killed.
“Even the accounts that we have, testimonies that we have. We have three accounts of hearing a woman being raped, in these cases they’re talking about a woman being eventually killed.
“I think in many respects the fact that some of the female hostages were held in complete isolation from others is a type of indication.
“It’s like raising the risk of her being sexually attacked to the maximum.”
The terrorist group has repeatedly denied that its members committed acts of sexual abuse towards prisoners or victims during the October 7 attacks.
But a United Nations report released stated there is “clear and convincing information” that some hostages had suffered sexual violence.
You’re Not Alone
EVERY 90 minutes in the UK a life is lost to suicide
It doesn’t discriminate, touching the lives of people in every corner of society – from the homeless and unemployed to builders and doctors, reality stars and footballers.
It’s the biggest killer of people under the age of 35, more deadly than cancer and car crashes.
And men are three times more likely to take their own life than women.
Yet it’s rarely spoken of, a taboo that threatens to continue its deadly rampage unless we all stop and take notice, now.
That is why The Sun launched the You’re Not Alone campaign.
The aim is that by sharing practical advice, raising awareness and breaking down the barriers people face when talking about their mental health, we can all do our bit to help save lives.
Let’s all vow to ask for help when we need it, and listen out for others… You’re Not Alone.
If you, or anyone you know, needs help dealing with mental health problems, the following organisations provide support:
- CALM, www.thecalmzone.net, 0800 585 858
- Heads Together,www.headstogether.org.uk
- HUMEN www.wearehumen.org
- Mind, www.mind.org.uk, 0300 123 3393
- Papyrus, www.papyrus-uk.org, 0800 068 41 41
- Samaritans,www.samaritans.org, 116 123
