Israeli who was sexually assaulted while held hostage describes horror she endured after she was abducted

By Katherine Lawton

19:20 03 Apr 2024, updated 21:37 03 Apr 2024

• Amit Soussana, 40, was taken hostage by Hamas during their October 7 attacks 

An Israeli woman who was sexually assaulted while being held hostage in Gaza has described the horror she endured after she was abducted. 

Amit Soussana, 40, was taken hostage by Hamas during their October 7 attacks on Israel and released 55 days later. 

The female hostage has described how she was surrounded and taken away by ten men who she tried to fight off before being transported to Gaza and chained up for three weeks in a dark room. 

Speaking in the new documentary ‘Screams Before Silence’, Ms Soussana said: ‘There were ten men around me. The feeling that they’re taking me like I’m some kind of object, I couldn’t stand it. 

‘My instinct was just to fight, and to do what I can. I was really scared that they were going to rape me there, and that they were going to drag me through Gaza streets and parade my body around. I feared that more than being killed.’ 

Ms Soussana, an Israeli lawyer, said she was then taken to Gaza and kept in a dark room for three weeks where she was watched by a guard. 

‘I was chained for three weeks in Gaza. I was kept in a really dark room without being able to move,’ she said. 

READ MORE: ‘I closed my legs and resisted. Then he dragged me to the bedroom’: First Israeli hostage to reveal she was sexually assaulted while held by Hamas describes how she was abused…then suspended between two couches to be beaten and tortured

‘Whenever I needed to go and use the bathroom I needed to ask for permission. 

‘His name was Muhammad. He used to sit on the bed in front of me wearing his shorts.

‘Lying down I remember I couldn’t look at him – I was just looking away and covering myself with a blanket so I wouldn’t have to look at him. It made me feel really uncomfortable.’ 

She added: ‘He also kept asking me, do I like sex, do I have sex with my boyfriend, and whenever he talked about it I just giggled and said ”oh come on stop, stop”, trying to change the subject. 

‘I knew he was up to something. I knew that something bas was going to happen.’ 

Ms Soussana described how she was given sanitary towels for her period and ordered to take a shower after her monthly cycle ended. 

‘One day Muhammad came and gave me women’s sanitary pads,’ she said. 

‘He said ”when you get your period, after that, you will take a shower, and you’ll wash your clothes”. And he kept repeating that a couple of time a day. 

‘Then I got my period, and the period was just for one day, but I fooled him to think that the period was continuing, until I could not lie anymore.’ 

Ms Soussana previously revealed how she was sexually assaulted by guard Muhammad while she was held captive by Hamas. 

Ms Soussana claimed the guard, with his ‘gun pointed at me, forced me to commit a sexual act on him’ in a child’s bedroom. 

The female hostage claimed she was sexually assaulted, as well as beaten and tortured, while she was held in Gaza for 55 days. 

The Israeli lawyer was released during a ceasefire in November alongside 21-year-old Mia Schem.