A recently freed Israeli hostage said he was subjected to “horrific” sexual assault while being held by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the beseiged Gaza Strip.Rom Braslavski, 21, a security guard kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7, told Channel 13 that he was stripped naked and tied up while being held hostage. He is the first male hostage to publicly allege sexual assault during captivity.
“They stripped me of all my clothes, my underwear, everything. When I was completely naked. I was wiped out, dying without food. And I prayed to God – save me, get me out of this already, and you just say to yourself like … what the hell is going on?” Braslavski said. Braslavski said the abuse he suffered was “unequivocally” sexual assault.“It is sexual violence and its main purpose was to humiliate me. The goal was to crush my dignity and that’s exactly what he did,” Bravlavski said, as quoted by Channel 13. “It’s hard for me to talk about that part, specifically. I don’t like to talk about it,” he added. His mother, Tami Braslavski, said her son “was held alone” by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and was taken into the tunnels only “two days before his release,” as cited by The Jerusalem Post.Braslavski was among the last 20 living hostages freed last month after more than two years in captivity, under a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. He had been held by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Gaza-based militant group allied with Hamas that also detained Israeli hostages during the war.Earlier this year, militants released footage showing an emaciated Braslavski, which his father said left him unable to recognize his son. His mother told Israeli media that he was allegedly pressured to convert to Islam in exchange for food, as cited by CNN.“You just pray to God for it to stop. And while I was there – every day, every beating – I’d say to myself, ‘I survived another day in hell. Tomorrow morning, I’ll wake up to another hell. And another hell. And another hell. It doesn’t end,” Braslavski said. Several Israeli hostages have alleged they were sexually assaulted or abused while held by Hamas, claims that the group has repeatedly denied. Until now, only female hostages had spoken publicly.Amit Soussana, who was freed after nearly two months in captivity, said she was sexually assaulted at gunpoint by her Hamas guard.The conflict began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants launched an attack that killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has since killed nearly 69,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
