A report will be submitted to the UN this week, the Israeli Ministry of Health announced this Sunday.
Israel's Health Ministry says in a report to the UN that hostages released last year from the Gaza Strip, including children, suffered physical and sexual violence during their captivity. The document is based on testimonies from former hostages who say they were burned, beaten, deprived of water and food or sexually abused by their captors.
It must be handed over this week to Alice Jill Edwards, UN special rapporteur on torture, the Israeli Ministry of Health announced this Sunday, December 29 in a press release.
“Sexually abused under force of a weapon”
During the unprecedented Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip, 251 people were kidnapped and taken to the Palestinian territory. The following month, a one-week truce, the only one so far, allowed the release of 105 hostages. Ninety-six others remain held in Gaza, 34 of whom have been declared dead by the Israeli army.
“One of the freed hostages says he was sexually abused by a Hamas terrorist under force with a gun”we can read in the report. “Some women testified that they were tied to beds while their captors watched”.
Israel has already published reports and testimonies on the conditions of the hostages' captivity, some denouncing sexual abuse, which the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has systematically rejected.
“Increase the pressure on Hamas”
“The horrors endured by the hostages reveal to the world the brutality of the enemy that Israel must face”commented Israeli Minister of Health Uriel Busso, calling on the international community to “increase the pressure on Hamas” for the release of the hostages still held.
Progress had been made in recent weeks to reach an agreement on the hostages and a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, but the two camps recently accused each other of stalling negotiations.
“The UN has the facts. She has a moral obligation to do everything in her power to ensure that the hostages come home immediately.”declared the President of Israel Isaac Herzog. The Forum of Hostage Families, the main support association, called for finding as quickly as possible “an agreement to ensure the immediate release of all the hostages”.
