What the victims and hostages of Hamas had to endure

There was great relief at the release of 105 hostages held by radical Islamist Hamas in exchange for Palestinian criminals in Israel and around the world. But the public is gradually becoming aware of the suffering these people have had to endure because of Hamas’s violence. Reports are incomplete. The emancipated do not know everything they say. People are shocked. A further 138 hostages, including 15 women and 2 children, are believed to be held by the militants.

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Images of those released around the world on November 24 had a disturbing effect: hostages being taken away by angry Palestinian mobs, and victims saying goodbye to their captors. “It’s a program they have to endure,” said Asher Ben-Arieh, a professor at the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Interview with Deutsche Welle A.

It is now known that the freed hostages were drugged, at least in those days. Hagar Mizrahi, head of the health ministry’s medical department, recently told members of Israel’s parliament that the hostages, women and children, were given the drug clonazepam before they were released.

The drug is known as Klonex in Israel and is sold elsewhere under the brand names Klonopin and Rivotril. It is used for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive and obsessive-compulsive disorders, anxiety disorders, seizures, bipolar, psychotic-related agitation.

The terrorists wanted to make the hostages look confident and content after 50 gruesome days. Family members of the hostages first raised the issue of drugs.

Members of the medical team caring for the group of 19 children and seven women reported that the hostages had lost 10 to 15 percent of their body weight. After being deprived of food and water, some exhibited eating disorders upon their return.

When he arrived at Gaza, those who passed him beat him.

According to his aunt, Deborah Cohen, 12-year-old Aidan was forced to “watch horror videos since October 7” while he was being held hostage and was kept alone in a cell for a while. “When he came to Gaza, the people he passed beat him,” Cohen told a French broadcaster. “They threatened the children with guns if they started crying.” Nine-year-old Emily only started whispering after returning from the Gaza Strip, her father says. “When she spoke to me, I couldn’t understand anything.”

50 days in darkness

13-year-old Hila’s uncle says he’s been in the dark for 50 days, and she’s also a freed hostage. Some slept on benches, others on mattresses on the floor. Yair Rotem told Israeli media that they should whisper during the day and keep quiet at night.

Among the 138 hostages held by Hamas are 15 women and two children. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington that the reason Hamas has not extradited the hostages, despite their meeting all conditions for surrender, is apparently because “they don’t want them to talk about what happened to them.” . They appear to be victims of particular cruelty.

But even the already known surpasses all fears. In a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the War Cabinet on Tuesday, the recently released hostages confirmed they had been sexually assaulted and beaten by kidnappers.

Hamas denies reports of abuses

Hamas has “rejected and strongly condemned” reports of abuses. The messaging app Telegram called such claims by Israel “false” aimed at discrediting the “humane” way in which Hamas has treated hostages.

But the terrorists themselves provided the first evidence that the October 7 attack resulted in systemic sexual violence at its worst, particularly against Supernova festival-goers. The young woman who went around the world in blood-soaked sweatpants on October 7 is still under the power of Hamas.

Yoni Chaton, a 39-year-old survivor of the supernova festival that killed hundreds of young people, described to the British “Sunday Times” what she had to observe hidden beneath the dead bodies: one woman had “eight. Or that she was “beaten and raped by ten fighters” before being shot. “When they finished, they laughed.”

“I have seen many eyewitness accounts, for example, of a survivor hiding in the bushes and seeing a woman next to him being raped by several men,” Israeli women’s rights activist and lawyer Ruth Halperin-Qatari told the BBC. Radio 4’s Today programme.

“We found broken legs, broken hip bones, bloody underwear,” said a female soldier, who spoke on condition of anonymity and is in charge of forensic examination of particularly badly beaten or partially burned bodies at an army base.South German newspaper“.

Israeli police analyzed 60,000 videos

Israeli police said investigators were examining some 60,000 videos from captured body cameras and surveillance cameras and social media of Hamas terrorists. The Israeli army found Captagon tablets in the bags of slain Hamas fighters. Many of them may be under the influence of this stimulant, also known as the “jihadi drug”, which the terrorist group “Islamic State” has already supplied to its fighters.

Evidence of sexual assault ranges from suspected gang-rape to autopsy mutilations. But with so many killed by the militants, it is said to be difficult to trace the suspected rape victims. Or maybe still a hostage.

What we don’t know, and the police are investigating, is whether the order was properly made.

“It is increasingly clear that violence against women, men and children includes broader sexual and gender-based violence,” the group Doctors for Human Rights in Israel wrote in a statement. “We know for sure that there was more than one case and that the attacks were not limited to one location,” said Hadas Siv, an ethicist working on the panel. “What we don’t know and the police are investigating is whether it was ordered and whether it was formal.”

What no one in Israel suspected was this: “It seemed their intention was to rape as many people as possible,” said Haim Outmeszin, a senior member of Zaka, the Israeli volunteer rescue service responsible for the extensive search. The clue has been busy since October 7, The Sunday Times.

I say to the women’s rights organizations, to the human rights organizations – you hear about the rape, brutality, sexual mutilation of Israeli women – where are you?

In light of such reports, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday accused the United Nations and human rights activists of turning a blind eye.

“I say to the women’s rights organizations, to the human rights organizations – the rape of Israeli women, the brutal atrocities, the sexual mutilations – where are you?” Netanyahu said at a press conference on Tuesday evening. He expects “all civilized” governments and nations to “say something against this atrocity.”

The UN has ignored the suffering of women for seven weeks

In fact, the United Nations took more than seven weeks to address the suffering of women in a report for the first time, causing outrage in Israel: “There have been many reports of sexual violence during Hamas’ heinous acts of terrorism on October 7. “We must seriously investigate and prosecute,” wrote UN chief Antonio Guterres. We are disturbed by the many reports of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence during these attacks.

RND/stu/AP