Former Israeli hostage says he experienced sexual assault

A former Israeli hostage, who was released in October, told Israeli TV that he was sexually assaulted during his two-year captivity in Gaza, according to the BBC via Reuters on November 7th.

Rom Braslavski, 21, is the first male hostage to openly claim that he faced sexual assault. Braslavski spoke on Chanel 13’s Hazinor programme, and had described being stripped naked and tied up by members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

Braslavski was on leave from his service as a soldier in the Israeli military and was since working as a security guard at the Nova musical festival when Hamas and Palestinian militant groups attacked south Israel on October 7 2023. This resulted in the deaths of roughly 1,200 people, while 251 others were taken hostage.

Since October 7th 2023, over 64,000 people are believed to have been killed by the Israeli military, while at least 163,859 others have sustained wounds.

The war has impacted the education of many children in Gaza, with 90% of schools in the enclave having to close down due to being damaged or completely destroyed.

In October, Braslavski was one of the last 20 living Israeli hostages who were freed under the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Braslavski said he was blindfolded for weeks and had stones put into his ears to impair his hearing; rations of food and water were also limited, according to the ex-captive.

He also explained how he was tied up, punched and whipped with a metal cable; this level of torture was repeated several times a day, he said. He added: “I entered into a loop, from which I doubted I would come out alive.”

In August, PIJ posted a video of Braslavski, where he was seen crying and saying he had no food and water. Braslavski told Channel 13 that his captors also assaulted him sexually.

He said: “They stripped me of all my clothes, my underwear, everything. They tied me up from the…When I was completely naked, I was wiped out, dying without food, and I prayed to God: Save me, get me out of this already.”

“You just pray to God for it to stop. And while I was there, every day, every beating, every day I’d say to myself, ‘I survived another day in hell. Tomorrow morning, I’d wake up to another hell. And another hell.”

Other detainees who were kept inside Israel’s secret detention sites have also spoken out about their abuse. Detainees described how they were denied medical care and were subjected to “systematic torture” in degrading conditions.

lawyers claimed it was evident that the prisoners showed visible signs of trauma. The lack of medical treatment led one prisoner to develop scabies in Ofer prison.

The sexual and violent abuse has been evident for many hostages in Gaza. The UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict said in March last year that she and a team of experts had found “convincing information” of rape and sexualised torture being carried out against some captives in Gaza.

BBC via Reuters, Maghrebi.org