Freed hostage Rom Braslavski says captors sexually assaulted him in Gaza
Former hostage describes sexual assault, starvation and beatings during two years held by Islamic Jihad
A freed Israeli hostage has revealed he was repeatedly sexually assaulted and tortured by Palestinian Islamic Jihad during more than two years in captivity in Gaza – the first male former captive known to publicly allege sexual violence by his abductors.
Rom Braslavski, kidnapped from his home in Nir Oz on 7 October 2023 and released last month, speaks in an interview with Israel’s Channel 13 programme Hazinor set to air Thursday night, with excerpts published by the Daily Mail.
He recalls being stripped naked, tied up and starved. “I was torn apart, dying, with no food,” he says. “I prayed to God, ‘Please, save me, get me out of this already’. And you just say to yourself, ‘What the f***?’”
“The goal was to crush my dignity,” he explains. “It was sexual violence – and its main purpose was to humiliate me.”
Braslavski says discussing the assaults remains agonising. “It’s hard for me to talk about that part specifically. I don’t like to talk about it. It’s hard. It was the most horrific thing.” He says the abuse was worse than anything he learnt about from history: “It’s something even the Nazis didn’t do. During Hitler’s time, they wouldn’t have done things like this.”
He describes daily beatings and despair. “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.’”
“I came back from meeting the devil,” he adds.
Proof-of-life videos released during his captivity drew international condemnation. A first clip published in April 2025 showed him alive, while a second released in July depicted him emaciated and visibly weakened, prompting urgent calls for his release.
After he returned to Israel, his mother said he had been whipped and beaten “with things that I will not even mention”. Guards also pressured him to convert to Islam, offering better food and treatment if he agreed – which he refused. They falsely told him Israelis had stopped caring, inflating claims of IDF casualties to break his spirit.
The Channel 13 interview will be broadcast in full on Thursday night.
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