Released hostage Amit Soussana, kidnapped on the deadly October 7 attack by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, talks to the press in front of her destroyed home at the Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Israel, Jan. 29, 2024. (Photo: REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini)
Gradually the released Israeli hostages have started to tell the world about what happened to them in captivity. In an interview with N12’s “Uvda” investigative program this week Amit Soussana shared some of her experiences of serious sexual assault and violence. She also explains how she believes newly released fellow hostage, Liri Albag, saved her life.
“Liri is something special,” Soussana told the news outlet. “She is a force of nature. I told her when she came back: ‘I don’t know if they would have killed me or not, as far as I’m concerned, you saved my life.'”
Soussana is something special herself. Footage of the 40-year-old lawyer from Kfar Aza fighting ten armed terrorists by herself for over half an hour has been watched with awe.
She resisted her capture with every fiber of her being, and put up a remarkable fight. “Drones were flying above me, I was going wild, purposely tripping over,” she says, recalling the events of Oct. 7, 2023. “I didn’t want them to think they scared me. I wasn’t going down without a fight.” Hoping someone would rescue her, Soussana drew her capture out as long as possible.
Eventually, she was dragged to Gaza where she suffered horrific abuse. She was one of the first to be released after 55 days in November 2023 and has been fighting just as hard for the return of the rest of the hostages ever since.
Soussana explained, “We, the hostages, made a vow to each other: if one of us were ever freed, we would never stop fighting for the release of the others. Today, I am fulfilling that promise by sharing my story, no matter how painful it is. Staying silent would be even harder.”
She was beaten with the barrel of a gun and trussed up in a blanket before being carried away. “They bust my lip open, broke my nose and my eye socket. I didn’t feel any pain, I don’t remember pain. I just remember saying, ‘They’re going to kill me, so at least I won’t go without a fight,'” she recalled. “I gave everything I had, because I thought I was going to die and in the most horrible way possible.”
Soussana described how she was locked up in darkness with a thick, metal chain which was padlocked. There was a small bit of daylight that entered the room that she says kept her sane. “There’s darkness in Gaza,” she said “you open your eyes and think they’re still closed.”
“I was afraid of him,” she says of the terrorist who imprisoned her. “I kept looking at his gun, I imagined shooting him and running away. I’m also tied up all the time, so if I need to go to the bathroom I have to ask him. The thing that broke me was that he made it completely dark for me.”
Soussana constantly suspected that her captor would rape her. “There were many signs that it was heading towards an assault. Obsessive preoccupation with my period, many sexual innuendos, he would sit in bed next to me or in front of me with only underwear, caressing me all the time under the pretext of concern. He would lift my shirt to see the scars. Sometimes he would talk about things that made me feel uncomfortable, I would move my head – but you still have to be nice to him.”
One day the terrorist forced her into the shower, and it was then that she was seriously sexually assaulted at gunpoint. “Even though I prepared myself, it surprised me,” she said. “This ‘idiot’ terrorist with such a ‘goofy’ face suddenly looked like a monster. He brought me a hand towel, I just took it and covered myself. He pulled me into the bedroom, I sat down by the door and locked myself in. He kept punching me and threatening me with the gun. It was a serious sexual assault at gunpoint.” She told the full story of her harrowing ordeal in the New York Times and also testified before the UN Security Council in October last year.
After three weeks on her own, she was taken to a different location where other hostages were also being held. Liri Albag, a field observer who was released on Friday was among them. Despite the company of other hostages, Soussana describes far worse treatment in this second house, where she experienced severe violence.
She said there was one terrorist who seemed more friendly, whose daughter had been treated for cancer of the eye in an Israeli hospital, and who had words of praise for the doctors who helped them. However, that friendliness soon disappeared.
They become convinced that Soussana was a soldier, possibly of high rank, and made it their mission to hurt and humiliate her in order to get information.
“Suddenly they brought two sticks, and simply tied me up while I was handcuffed by my hands and feet – like a grilled chicken, hanging upside down with duct tape on my face.”
In this excruciating position she was beaten with wooden sticks, particularly on the soles of her feet, while another man tried to drive a spike into her eye. She was told, “You have 40 minutes to tell the truth, or I’ll kill you.” It was at this point that Liri Albag stepped in, and managed to persuade them that Soussana was just a civilian, potentially saving her life. Now the two women have been reunited.
“I told her when she came back: ‘I don’t know if they would have killed me or not, as far as I’m concerned, you saved my life,'” Soussana relayed.
“She’s something special,” Soussana said of Albag, with great appreciation. “I felt weak next to her.”
