By: Fern Sidman

The stories that have begun to emerge from the survivors of Hamas captivity are not merely accounts of physical abuse; they are indictments of a system of terror that weaponized the most intimate forms of violation to humiliate, dominate, and destroy. These testimonies, offered haltingly by men, women, and even children who were dragged into Gaza on October 7, illuminate only a fraction of the crimes committed that day. Hundreds of other voices will never be heard. Many of those who endured sexual violence were murdered before they could tell anyone what had been done to them.

In the aftermath of the massacre, Israeli investigators found bodies with signs of extreme sexual assault—victims discovered partially unclothed, their bodies bearing injuries that could only have been inflicted through brutal physical violations. Survivors of the Nova music festival have testified that they heard attackers assaulting women and men during the chaos of the attack. Captured Hamas fighters have admitted, in closed interrogations, what they witnessed and what they themselves perpetrated. The most graphic details have not been released to the public, a decision made not to sanitize reality, but to preserve the dignity of the dead and spare families further trauma.

And yet, the question that echoes through every testimony is devastatingly simple: how much more evidence does the world require before it recognizes that sexual violence was deployed deliberately, systematically, as a weapon of war?

Sexual violence in conflict is not new. History is scarred with its presence, from the wars of antiquity to the genocides of the modern era. But what distinguishes the accounts emerging from Hamas captivity is the sheer intentionality of the abuse. These were not random acts committed in the heat of battle. Survivors describe violations carried out methodically, repeatedly, often by multiple captors over extended periods of time.

Romi Gonen, who returned from Gaza, told of being assaulted by several different men while in captivity. One of her abusers was a man who presented himself as a “nurse,” assigned to tend to her wounds. Instead of offering care, he became another instrument of terror. Her account speaks to a grotesque inversion of trust: the uniform of a healer transformed into a disguise for cruelty.

Other former hostages describe similar patterns. Alon Ohel recounted being abused while in a state of forced vulnerability, his captor turning moments that should have offered privacy and dignity into scenes of intimidation. Guy Gilboa-Dalal said he was assaulted after being ordered to shower, the violence accompanied by threats to his life. The intent was unmistakable: to erase any sense of control, to reduce the captive to an object.

Amit Soussana, whose testimony has resonated around the world, described the relentless nature of her ordeal. Her captor, she said, fixated on her bodily cycles, making comments that reduced her to little more than a biological function in his eyes. The cruelty lay not only in the acts themselves, but in the daily psychological torment that accompanied them.

For fifteen-year-old Dafna Elyakim, captivity meant a constant barrage of invasive behavior and threats about her future. Her captor, she said, spoke of keeping her in Gaza permanently, forcing her into a life she had never chosen. For a child, already stripped of freedom, the words alone were enough to constitute a form of ongoing terror.

Some of the most harrowing accounts come not from those who were assaulted themselves, but from those who were forced to witness the abuse of others. Aviva Siegel, speaking before the United Nations, recounted seeing a young girl emerge from a private space in captivity in tears after being followed by her captor. The implication was clear, even without explicit description. In Gaza, there was nowhere to hide.

Ilana Gritzewsky awoke on October 7 in circumstances that still defy comprehension. She found herself partially undressed, surrounded by armed men. The disorientation, the terror, the immediate sense that something unspeakable had occurred—these fragments are all that many survivors can articulate. The mind, when faced with overwhelming trauma, often retreats from detail.

Agam Goldstein-Almog told of witnessing another girl being coerced under threat of violence. Her testimony reveals how sexual assault was not only inflicted, but used as spectacle—another tool to terrorize captives into submission.

And then there is Rom Braslavski, who said that fighters from Palestinian Islamic Jihad subjected him to a cycle of humiliation and torture. He was stripped, restrained, and degraded, his body used as a stage upon which power was asserted.

Each account differs in circumstance, yet they converge on a single point: the abuse was deliberate, systematic, and intended to annihilate the victim’s sense of self.

For months after October 7, global attention focused—understandably—on the scale of the massacre itself. The images of burned homes, shattered communities, and families torn apart dominated the news cycle. The stories of sexual violence, by contrast, struggled to find space in the international conversation.

Part of this silence stems from the nature of the crime. Sexual assault is among the most underreported forms of violence in any context, and in war it is compounded by shame, fear, and cultural taboos. Survivors often carry an additional burden: the fear that their suffering will be minimized, politicized, or dismissed altogether.

In this case, many felt that their voices were not merely unheard, but actively sidelined. International organizations were slow to acknowledge the scale of the abuse. Some observers demanded standards of proof that were impossible to meet given the circumstances—calling for forensic detail even as many victims lay in unmarked graves.

Yet the accumulation of testimony now renders denial increasingly untenable. These are not isolated stories. They form a mosaic of horror, each fragment reinforcing the others.

What emerges from these accounts is not simply a catalogue of individual crimes, but evidence of a broader strategy. Sexual violence, in this context, functioned as a form of psychological warfare. It was designed to humiliate families, to fracture communities, and to send a message that no boundary—cultural, moral, or physical—would be respected.

This is why so many survivors describe not only the acts themselves, but the language that accompanied them: the taunts, the threats, the declarations of ownership over their bodies. The violence was performative, meant to resonate beyond the immediate victim.

Such tactics are well-documented in other conflicts, from the Balkans to Rwanda. In each case, rape was not a by-product of war; it was part of the war.

The testimonies now emerging force a reckoning not only with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but with the international community. Recognition is not an abstract moral gesture; it is the foundation upon which justice is built. Without acknowledgment, there can be no accountability. Without accountability, the crimes risk being repeated.

How many more Romis, Amits, Dafnas, and Guys must step forward before the world confronts what was done to them? How many more mothers must learn, long after burying their daughters, that those daughters suffered violations whose details will never be spoken aloud?

The stories that have surfaced are only the beginning. They are the voices of those who survived. The silence of the murdered remains absolute.

What October 7 revealed, beyond the brutality of the massacre, is that sexual violence was not incidental—it was integral. To speak of it is painful, but to remain silent is to compound the crime.