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Israeli Report to UN Exposes Hamas Torture, Sexual Abuse of Hostages, Including Children
Hamas terrorists kidnapping Israeli women at the Nahal Oz base near the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: Screenshot
Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip were subjected to unspeakable abuse, including sexual torture in which teenagers were forced to perform sex acts on one another, starvation, beatings, burnings, and severe medical neglect, according to a new report that will be submitted by Israel to the United Nations this week.
Children were branded with heated objects and beaten, while women and girls endured sexual assault and psychological humiliation, the report said. Male hostages described being left in isolation, denied food and water, and forced to defecate on themselves, as well as beatings and burnings with irons.
Based on extensive interviews and medical evaluations conducted by Israeli health and welfare teams for more than 100 hostages, the report will be submitted later this week to Alice Edwards, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
The hostages, who were mostly released at the end of November 2023 as part of a week-long ceasefire deal with Hamas, were among the 251 individuals snatched by the terrorist group in southern Israel during its invasion and brutal assault on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were murdered. Some of the hostages were freed in rescue operations by Israeli forces. Approximately 100 hostages remain in captivity.
Children and other hostages were forced to watch footage from the Oct. 7 attack.
They also “witnessed the killing of other captives, further deepening their sense of helplessness and hopelessness,” the report said.
“In captivity, the hostages were often subjected to solitary confinement, poor sanitation, severe medical neglect, lack of sleep, starvation, sexual abuse, violence, threats, and brainwashing through media designed to break their spirit and make them submissive,” it continued.
One child, according to the report, was tied to a chair for extended periods and beaten if they cried. Another survivor recounted how captors extinguished cigarettes on their arms and legs as a form of punishment.
The report highlighted the experiences of women hostages, who faced some of the most egregious abuses. One survivor described being tied to a bed and left for hours, while guards watched her distress for their own amusement. Some were forced to perform humiliating acts under the threat of violence. Others were sexually assaulted by their captors.
Among the elderly hostages, medical neglect was particularly severe. Diabetics were denied insulin, while others with chronic conditions like hypertension or heart disease were left without necessary medications. Some were given food that exacerbated their illnesses or were denied adequate hydration, leaving them weak and unable to stand.
According to the report, in the days leading up to last year’s ceasefire agreement, the captors made noticeable efforts to improve the hostages’ living conditions. They increased food rations and distributed clean clothing, actions that appeared intended to mask the harsh realities of their captivity and give the impression of humane treatment.
In addition to detailing the abuse, the report also criticized the international community for what it described as insufficient action to secure the hostages’ release. To date, the International Red Cross has not accessed the hostages.
The report is “a harrowing testimony to the brutal experiences suffered by the hostages in Hamas captivity,” Israeli health minister Uriel Busso said in a statement released alongside the report. “The horrors the hostages endured reveals to the world the brutality of the enemy with whom Israel is engaged.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the UN was “morally obliged” to bring the remaining hostages home.
“These are the testimonies of those who have been released and rescued. But still, for 450 days 100 innocent men, women, and children, babies and the elderly, have been held hostage in Gaza. With the winter upon us, their lives are in imminent danger,” he said.
Torture. Physical and psychological torture. Starvation. Sexual abuse. Beatings. Branding.
Just some of the horrific words that jump of the pages of the Ministry of Health’s submission to the UN on the horrific ordeal endured by the hostages at the hands of Hamas terrorist…
— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) December 29, 2024
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum called on global leaders to act urgently to secure the release of all hostages in Gaza, warning that |every hostage faces mortal danger each day they remain in captivity.”
“To the world, its leaders, and humanitarian organizations: How can you watch this torture continue? How can you remain silent?” a statement released by the forum said.
Urging the United States and mediating parties to prioritize a comprehensive ceasefire deal for the release of all hostages, the forum stated, “The time to act is now. Lives hang in the balance.”
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New Orleans Attack Puts Spotlight on Islamic State Comeback Bid
A member of the Emergency Response Division holds an Islamic State militants flag in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 10, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani/File Photo.
A US Army veteran who flew a black Islamic State flag on a truck that he rammed into New Year’s revelers in New Orleans shows how the extremist group still retains the ability to inspire violence despite suffering years of losses to a US-led military coalition.
At the height of its power from 2014-2017, the Islamic State “caliphate” imposed death and torture on communities in vast swathes of Iraq and Syria and enjoyed franchises across the Middle East.
Its then-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed in 2019 by US special forces in northwestern Syria, rose from obscurity to lead the ultra-hardline group and declare himself “caliph” of all Muslims.
The caliphate collapsed in 2017 in Iraq, where it once had a base just a 30-minute drive from Baghdad, and in Syria in 2019, after a sustained military campaign by a US-led coalition.
Islamic State responded by scattering in autonomous cells, its leadership is clandestine and its overall size is hard to quantify. The U.N. estimates it at 10,000 in its heartlands.
The US-led coalition, including some 4,000 US troops in Syria and Iraq, has continued hammering the militants with airstrikes and raids that the US military says have seen hundreds of fighters and leaders killed and captured.
Yet Islamic State has managed some major operations while striving to rebuild and it continues to inspire lone wolf attacks such as the one in New Orleans which killed 14 people.
Those assaults include one by gunmen on a Russian music hall in March 2024 that killed at least 143 people, and two explosions targeting an official ceremony in the Iranian city of Kerman in January 2024 that killed nearly 100.
Despite the counterterrorism pressure, ISIS has regrouped, “repaired its media operations, and restarted external plotting,” Acting US Director for the National Counterterrorism Center Brett Holmgren warned in October.
Geopolitical factors have aided Islamic State. Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has caused widespread anger that jihadists use for recruitment. The risks to Syrian Kurds who are holding thousands of Islamic State prisoners could also create an opening for the group.
Islamic State has not claimed responsibility for the New Orleans attack or praised it on its social media sites, although its supporters have, US law enforcement agencies said.
A senior US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there had been growing concern about Islamic State increasing its recruiting efforts and resurging in Syria.
Those worries were heightened after the fall in December of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the potential for the militant group to fill the vacuum.
‘MOMENTS OF PROMISE’
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned that Islamic State will try to use this period of uncertainty to re-establish capabilities in Syria, but said the United States is determined not to let that happen.
“History shows how quickly moments of promise can descend into conflict and violence,” he said.
A U.N. team that monitors Islamic State activities reported to the U.N. Security Council in July a “risk of resurgence” of the group in the Middle East and increased concerns about the ability of its Afghanistan-based affiliate, ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), to mount attacks outside the country.
European governments viewed ISIS-K as “the greatest external terrorist threat to Europe,” it said.
“In addition to the executed attacks, the number of plots disrupted or being tracked through the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Levant, Asia, Europe, and potentially as far as North America is striking,” the team said.
Jim Jeffrey, former US ambassador to Iraq and Turkey, and Special Envoy to the Global Coalition To Defeat Islamic State, said the group has long sought to motivate lone wolf attacks like the one in New Orleans.
Its threat, however, remains efforts by ISIS-K to launch major mass casualty attacks like those seen in Moscow and Iran, and in Europe in 2015 and 2016, he said.
ISIS also has continued to focus on Africa.
This week, it said 12 Islamic State militants using booby-trapped vehicles attacked a military base on Tuesday in Somalia’s northeastern region of Puntland, killing around 22 soldiers and wounding dozens more.
It called the assault “the blow of the year. A complex attack that is first of its kind.”
Security analysts say Islamic State in Somalia has grown in strength because of an influx of foreign fighters and more revenue from extorting local businesses, becoming the group’s “nerve centre” in Africa.
‘PATH TO RADICALIZATION’
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas native and US Army veteran who once served in Afghanistan, acted alone in the New Orleans attack, the FBI said on Thursday.
Jabbar appeared to have made recordings in which he condemned music, drugs and alcohol, restrictions that echo Islamic State’s playbook.
Investigators were looking into Jabbar’s “path to radicalization,” uncertain how he transformed from military veteran, real-estate agent and one-time employee of the major tax and consulting firm Deloitte into someone who was “100 percent inspired by ISIS,” an acronym for Islamic State.
US intelligence and homeland security officials in recent months have warned local law enforcement about the potential for foreign extremist groups, such as ISIS, to target large public gatherings, specifically with vehicle-ramming attacks, according to intelligence bulletins reviewed by Reuters.
US Central Command said in a public statement in June that Islamic State was attempting to “reconstitute following several years of decreased capability.”
CENTCOM said it based its assessment on Islamic State claims of mounting 153 attacks in Iraq and Syria in the first half of 2024, a rate which would put the group “on pace to more than double the number of attacks” claimed the year before.
H.A. Hellyer, an expert in Middle East studies and senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, said it was unlikely Islamic State would gain considerable territory again.
He said ISIS and other non-state actors continue to pose a danger, but more due to their ability to unleash “random acts of violence” than by being a territorial entity.
“Not in Syria or Iraq, but there are other places in Africa that a limited amount of territorial control might be possible for a time,” Hellyer said, “but I don’t see that as likely, not as the precursor to a serious comeback.”
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US Plans $8 Billion Arms Sale to Israel, US Official Says
US President Joe Biden speaks on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in this White House handout image taken in the Oval Office in Washington, US, April 4, 2024. Photo: The White House/Handout via REUTERS
The administration of President Joe Biden has notified Congress of a proposed $8 billion arms sale to Israel, a US official said on Friday, with Washington maintaining support for its ally.
The deal would need approval from the House of Representatives and Senate committees and includes munitions for fighter jets and attack helicopters as well as artillery shells, Axios reported earlier. The package also includes small-diameter bombs and warheads, according to Axios.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Protesters have for months demanded an arms embargo against Israel, but US policy has largely remained unchanged. In August, the United States approved the sale of $20 billion in fighter jets and other military equipment to Israel.
The Biden administration says it is helping its ally defend against Iran-backed terrorist groups like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
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Hamas Releases Proof-of-Life Video of Israeli Hostage Liri Albag
Illustrative. An undated picture of (from left) Liri Albag, Agam Berger, Daniella Gilboa, and Karina Ariev held hostage by Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, that was made public by their families on July 16, 2024. Photo: Hostages and Missing Families Forum
i24 News – The Palestinian terrorists of Hamas on Saturday released a video showing signs of life from Israeli hostage Liri Albag.
Albag’s family requested media not to share the video or images from it, asking journalists to respect their privacy at this moment.
Albag, 20, is a surveillance soldier stationed at the Nahal Oz base, was abducted on October 7 by Palestinian jihadists.
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