A former Israeli hostage freed last month told Israeli TV that she was sexually assaulted during her two years in captivity in Gaza.
In an interview with Channel 13’s Hazinor Program, Rom Braslavski, 21, described being stripped naked and tied up by members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
“This is sexual violence, and its main purpose is humiliation. Its purpose is to humiliate me, to crush my dignity,” he said.
He was the first person to hold a hostage to be publicly sexually assaulted.
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Rom Braslavski left his service as a soldier in the Israeli military and worked as a Security guard at the Nova Victin Festrival of 7,200 people and took about 11 others as hostages.
Israel responded to the attacks by launching a military campaign in Gaza that killed more than 68,800 people, according to the Hamas-Run Hamas-run Hamas-Run Hamas-Run Hamas-Run Hamas-run Hamas-Run Hamas-Run Hamas-Run Hamas-Run Peophy Ministry.
Four weeks ago, Mr Braslavski was one of the last 20 Israeli hostages released under a broken US ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
In the interview with Channel 13, broadcast late on Thursday, Mr. Braslavski said his treatment by PIJ deteriorated rapidly after he had refused to convert from Judaism to Islam in March this year, which was also when the previous ceasefire collapsed.
He said he was lifted for three weeks, had stones put in his ears to block his hearing, and reduced his food and water rations.
Afterwards, he added, his captors received what they described as an order to make him sick.
Mr. Braslavski said they tied him up, punched him, and beat him with a metal cable – and that this was repeated in one day.
“I entered a hole, which I thought I was going to come out of alive,” he recalled.
In August 2025, PIJ posted a video in which Mr. Braslavski was seen crying and saying that he had run out of food and water, was unable to stand, and was “at death’s door”.
After the video was published, Mr. Braslavski told Channel 13, his captors also began sexually assaulting him.
“They stripped me of all my clothes, my clothes, everything. They bound me from … when I was naked, I prayed to God: ‘Save me,'” he said.
When asked if his captives were “a lot of things like that”, Mr. Braslavski replied: “Yes. It’s hard for me to talk about this part. And it’s a terrible thing.”
He added: “You just pray to God for it to stop. And while I was there, every day, I endured another hell. And I survived another hell.
Isaac Herzog said that Mr. Braslavski showed “extraordinary courage in sharing the horrors of his captivity, including a terrible sexual assault he suffered”.
“The world needs to understand the scale of the crimes committed by terrorists in Gaza, devastating brutality, sexual violence, and abuse,” he wrote in X.
At least four women held as hostages have spoken publicly about alleged incidents of sexual abuse against themselves or fellow captives, according to routers.
A PIJ official told the Reuters news agency that Mr. Braslavski’s Allegation’s ASSAGH “NOTHING”, without elaborating.
The UN special representative on sexual violence in the conflict said in March 2024 that he had met a team of experts “Convincing Information” of Abuse and Sexual Torture Perpetrated against Some Hostages in Gaza. They also found reasonable grounds to believe that sexual violence occurred in several locations, including rape and gang rape, during the 7 October attack. Hamas said the report’s findings were “baseless”.
A separate report by a Commission of Inquiry in March 2025 concluded that Israel has “excessive violence against Palestinians, including public education of Palestinians, as well as sexual rape, as well as threats of rape, as well as sexual assault”. Israel called the allegations “baseless”.
Last week, Israel’s former military attorney said he was responsible for leaking a video of soldiers abusing soldiers at an Israeli base last year. The Detainee was treated for serious injuries after allegedly being stoned in the rectum. Five soldiers were charged in the incident.