“Liri Elbag saved my life,” is just one of the revelations of released hostage Amit Soussana’s exclusive, first-time interview with N12’s Uvda on Tuesday night.
Soussana, a 40-year-old lawyer taken captive from Kfar Aza, has been a prominent campaigner for the release of the remaining hostages from Gaza, and was the first released hostage to give public and direct testimony of the sexual abuse she endured at the hands of Hamas terrorists.
October 7
In the N12 interview, she remembers the moments she was taken captive, and details the horrors endured during her 55 days in Hamas captivity. Soussana was released in the first hostage-prisoner exchange in November 2023.
The infamous footage of Soussana’s kidnapping shows her, alone, battling ten armed men for more than 40 minutes, in what she called “the battler of her life.”
She said she tried to buy as much time as she could to allow the army to rescue her.
Recently released hostage Amit Soussana’s remarkable courage shines in a new video on N12. The footage vividly captures her brave stand against seven terrorists, as she adamantly refuses to be taken hostage. Read more: https://t.co/JjmY2ohHHZ pic.twitter.com/wVdimQETbj
— The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) December 5, 2023
“I just stumbled, I walked slowly,” she told N12. “At first, the terrorists probably believed me, then I started gesturing with my hands and feet and going wild – to make it look like I was alive.” This was done in the hope that someone would come to her rescue.
However, despite making things more difficult for her captors, Soussana suffered blows, beatings and one terrorist even hit her with the barrel of his gun. Her captors then tied her up with a blanket she was carried out of her house.
“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 told N12.
“I gave everything I had, because I thought I was going to die and in the most horrible way possible,” she continued.
In captivity
At the start of her captivity in Gaza, Soussana was held alone. Her captor tied her up with a thick metal chain, secured with a padlock.
“I was afraid of him,” she told N12. “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.”
Soussana said the only thing that kept her sane was the small bit of daylight that entered the room she was being held in.
“There’s darkness in Gaza,” she said “you open your eyes and think they’re still closed. 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.”
Soon after this, she suffered serious sexual assault at gunpoint, when the terrorist guarding her offered her a hot shower.
“Even though I prepared myself [for assault] 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, locked myself in. He kept punching me and threatening me with the gun. It was a serious sexual assault at gunpoint.”
‘Liri is something special’
Three weeks after she was first taken hostage, during which she was held alone, Soussana was transferred to a new location where she met other hostages, including IDF observer Liri Elbag, who was released last weekend.
The violence and suffering Soussana endured was much worse in this house, she told N12, because the guards thought she was a soldier.
“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 masking tape on my face.” The terrorists then proceeded to hit her on the soles of her feet with a wooden stick, and another tried to drive a spike into her eye.
N12 noted in relation to this story that Soussana’s details may give insight into how captive soldiers are treated.
The guards told Soussana “You have 40 minutes to tell the truth, or I’ll kill you.”
At the point, Liri Elbag went out to speak to the guards, and successfully convinced them that Soussana was not a soldier, much less a senior official as the guards believed.
The guards backed down.
“Liri is something special,” Soussana said. “She is a force. 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.'”
Sexual assault in captivity
Soussana has been outspoken about the violence and sexual assault she suffered in Gaza.
In March 2024, she gave an eight hour interview to the New York Times, in which she detailed the rape she endured during captivity.
This made Soussana the first released hostage to give direct testimony of sexual atrocities committed by Hamas.
The first sexual assault occurred around October 24, when her captor Muhammad forced her to commit a sex act on him, Soussana told NYT.
“Then, with the gun pointed at me, [he] forced me to commit a sexual act on him,” Soussana said. After it was over, Muhammad left the room to wash up and left Soussana naked in the dark.
In November 2024, she spoke to the UN Security Council, providing details of her assault. She added that her experiences were an added incentive to fight for the release of the remaining hostages from Gaza.
“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.”
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