There was great relief at the release of 105 hostages held by the extremist Islamic movement Hamas in exchange for the release of convicted Palestinian criminals – in Israel and around the world. But the public only gradually learns what these people had to suffer under Hamas’ violence. Reports are incomplete. Not everything that free people say becomes known. People are shocked. There are still 138 hostages believed to be held by extremists, including 15 women and two children.

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The images of the liberators that roamed the world on November 24, and then left them behind, had a disturbing effect: hostages being led through an angry Palestinian mob, victims waving goodbye to their captors. “It was an offer they had to endure,” says Asher Ben-Arieh, a professor at the Paul Berwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Interview with Deutsche Welle a.

It is now known that the released hostages were drugged, at least in those days. Hagar Mizrahi, head of the Health Ministry’s medical department, recently told members of the Israeli parliament that the hostages, women and children, were given the drug clonazepam before they were released.

The drug is known as Clonex in Israel and is sold under the brand names Klonopin and Rivotril elsewhere. It is used preventively and to treat anxiety disorders, seizures, bipolar, agitation associated with psychosis, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The terrorists clearly wanted to make the hostages appear optimistic and content after 50 terrible days. Family members of the hostages first raised the drug issue.

Members of a medical team caring for a group of 19 children and seven women also reported that the hostages lost between 10 and 15 percent of their body weight. Deprived of food and water, some showed eating disorders upon their return.

According to his aunt Deborah Cohen, 12-year-old Etan was forced to „watch horror videos from October 7” while being held hostage and held alone in a room for some time. “When he arrived in Gaza, the people he passed beat him,” Cohen told French radio. “They threatened the children with a gun if they started crying.” Nine-year-old Emily didn’t whisper until after she returned from the Gaza Strip, her father says. „When she talked to me, I couldn’t understand anything.”

50 days in the dark

Thirteen-year-old Hela’s uncle reported that she spent about 50 days in the dark, and she is also a hostage who was released. Some people slept on chairs, others on mattresses on the floor. Yair Rotem told Israeli media that they were told to whisper during the day and be quiet at night.

Among the 138 hostages still held by Hamas are 15 women and two children. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller in Washington told reporters that the reason Hamas did not hand over these hostages, despite them fulfilling all the conditions for surrender, was clearly “because they did not want them to talk about what happened to them.” . These seem to be people who have suffered special cruelty.

But even what is already known exceeds all fears. In a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet on Tuesday, the recently released hostages confirmed that they had been subjected to sexual violence and assault by their captors.

Hamas denies reports of violations

Hamas „strongly rejected and condemned” reports of violations. A post on the messaging app Telegram said such claims are “lies” from Israel aimed at discrediting the “humane” way Hamas treats Israeli hostages.

But the terrorists themselves have provided the first evidence that the attack on October 7 led to systematic sexual violence of the worst levels, especially against visitors to the Supernova festival, in the form of streaming films. The young woman, whose photos went viral on October 7 wearing sweatpants stained with blood, is still in Hamas’s grip.

International law also applies to Israel

With the new phase of the war in the Gaza Strip, civilian suffering will increase again. Germany and the United States must remind Israel more clearly than before that international law applies to everyone, says Kan-Miri.

39-year-old Yoni Sadoun, a survivor of the Supernova Festival, in which hundreds of young people were killed, described in the British newspaper The Sunday Times what he was to notice hiding under the bodies: an eight-year-old woman. Or “she was beaten and raped by ten fighters” before being shot. „And when they finished, they laughed.”

Israeli women’s rights activist and lawyer Ruth Halperin-Kadari told the BBC: „I have seen a number of first-hand eyewitness accounts, for example from a survivor who hid in the bush and saw a woman next to him being raped by several men.” Radio 4 Today programme.

“We saw broken legs, broken pelvises, and blood-stained underwear,” said a female soldier, who requested to remain anonymous and is responsible for forensic examinations of severely beaten or partially burned bodies at a military base.South German newspaper„.

Israeli police examine 60,000 video clips

Israeli police said investigators are reviewing about 60,000 videos from seized cameras of Hamas terrorists and surveillance cameras, as well as from social media. The Israeli army found Captagon pills in the bags of killed Hamas fighters. It is likely that many of them were under the influence of this stimulant, also known as the “jihadi drug,” which the terrorist “Islamic State” militia had previously given to its fighters.

Evidence of sexual violence ranged from suspected gang rape to post-mortem mutilation. But suspected rape victims are said to be difficult to find because many of them were killed by extremists. Or maybe they are still being held hostage.

“It has become increasingly clear that violence committed against women, men and children also includes widespread sexual and gender-based violence,” Physicians for Human Rights Israel wrote in a report. “We know for sure that there was more than one case and that the attacks were not limited to one place,” added Hadas Siu, an ethics expert working for the group. “What we don’t know and what the police are investigating is whether or not an order was issued and whether it was systematic.”

And this is exactly what no one in Israel doubts: “It seems that their mission was to rape as many people as possible,” said Haim Otzgen, a senior member of ZAKA, an Israeli volunteer rescue service that was responsible for the detailed search for the bodies. The clues since October 7 have been busy in The Sunday Times.

In light of these reports, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Tuesday, accused the United Nations and human rights activists of turning a blind eye to the matter.

Netanyahu said in a press conference on Tuesday evening: “I say to women’s rights organizations, human rights organizations – you have heard about the rape of Israeli women, the terrible atrocities, sexual mutilation – where the hell are you?” He expects all governments and „civilized” countries to „say something against this cruelty.”

The United Nations ignored the women’s suffering for seven weeks

In fact, there is so much anger in Israel that the United Nations took more than seven weeks to address women’s plight in a statement for the first time: „There are numerous reports of sexual violence during Hamas’ heinous terrorist acts on October 7.” “We must vigorously investigate and prosecute those accused,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres wrote. We are disturbed by the numerous reports of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence during these attacks.

RND/STO/AP