Hamas’ War on Women: Survivors Detail Horrors of Captivity

Hamas’ War on Women: Survivors Detail Horrors of Captivity

‘There wasn’t a moment when we weren’t abused.'

She was twenty-seven years old, kidnapped from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. She didn’t survive. Her body was returned to Israel two years after she was taken. The last known female hostage held by Hamas.

“There wasn’t a moment when we weren’t abused,” said Aviva Siegel, one of the first women to be released. She was held for 51 days.

What happened to Israeli women in Hamas captivity was not the collateral damage of war. It was deliberate. Their treatment followed a logic of humiliation and subjugation. Women’s bodies were used as weapons of propaganda, objects of conquest, and instruments of psychological warfare. This is how Hamas fights. Their war strategy dehumanizes women in service of a larger mission: the destruction of the Jewish people.

https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/hamas-war-women-survivors