Released hostage Amit Soussana recounts sexual assault at hands of Hamas captor

Released hostage Amit Soussana, 40, was sexually assaulted and attacked by her Hamas guard during her captivity in Gaza, she told The New York Times in an interview published Tuesday, marking the first time a freed hostage has spoken publicly about experiencing sexual abuse.

Soussana, who was released from captivity on the last day of a weeklong truce in late November, recounted to the newspaper how she was held alone, chained up in a child’s bedroom in darkness where she was forced to commit sexual acts for her Hamas captor, who she said went by the name Muhammad.

Sometime around October 24, he attacked her while she was briefly unchained in order to use the bathroom, she recounted.

“He came towards me and shoved the gun at my forehead,” Soussana said. “He sat me on the edge of the bath. And I closed my legs. And I resisted. And he kept punching me and put his gun in my face,” Soussana stated. “Then he dragged me to the bedroom.”

She recounted being forced to remove her towel while Muhammad groped her, before being marched at gunpoint back to the bedroom, where he forced her to “commit a sexual act on him.” READ MORE