Rom Braslavski, one of the 20 living hostages who recently returned to Israel from Gaza, came out public and stated that he was sexually assaulted by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad while in captivity. He is the first male hostage to come open with sexual abuse allegations against the terror groups in Gaza.
By Rachel Avraham
Rom Braslavski was sexually abused in captivity by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Channel 13 News reported. According to the Jerusalem Post, the released hostage revealed that his captors stripped him naked, starved him, and tied him up while sexually assaulting him.
Rom Braslavski, age 21, was violently abducted by Palestinian Islamic Jihad on October 7, 2023 while he was working as a security guard at the Nova music festival, the Daily Mail reported. According to the report, he was held captive for more than two years in brutal conditions and was released last month as part of a US-brokered ceasefire deal that saw all living hostages freed.
According to the Daily Mail, he recounted: “They stripped me of all my clothes — underwear, everything. They tied me up from my… while I was completely naked. I was torn apart, dying, with no food. I prayed to God, “Please, save me, get me out of this already.” And you just say to yourself, “What the f***?”‘”
“It was sexual violence, and its main purpose was to humiliate me,” he told the Jerusalem Post. “The goal was to crush my dignity. And that’s exactly what he did.” According to the report, the sexual abuse that Braslavski experienced happened frequently. Rom related that it is difficult for him to speak about the sexual violence that he survived: “It’s something even the Nazis didn’t do. During Hitler’s time, they wouldn’t have done things like this. You just pray 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. And another. It doesn’t end.’”
According to the Jerusalem Post, Tami Braslavski, his mother, said her son “was held alone” by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and was taken down to the tunnels only “two days before his release.” She told Channel 13 News: “His captors demanded that he convert to Islam. He refused. He went through abuse, and I don’t want to elaborate further.”
In a separate report, Israel Hayom quoted Braslavski’s mother saying that Rom “was held alone for two years, and for part of the time he was held with the bodies of other hostages beside him.” ‘I came back from meeting the devil,’ Rom told the Daily Mail.
While female hostages such as Amit Soussana and Ilana Gritzewsky have bravely spoken of sexual assault in captivity, Mr Braslavski’s testimony is the first by a male survivor to publicly describe such abuse, the Daily Mail noted.
Gritzewsky, who testified before the UN Security Council, described being held at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the Daily Mail reported. According to the report, she said: “’On the way to Gaza, when they started to touch me and sexually abuse me, I passed out physically and mentally. I couldn’t handle it anymore.’” Sousanna described to the New York Times being sexually assaulted at gunpoint. According to CNN, more than a dozen former hostages described experiencing or witnessing sexual violence while in captivity, according to a report compiled by the Dinal Project. The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten also published a report last year which stressed that they found “clear and convincing” evidence that hostages in Gaza were sexually abused, CNN added.
Photo from StandWithUs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cypHQqlwc7s
