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Ex-captive describes abuse, forced Islamization of hostage women

Teenage Israeli girl taken captive in Gaza describes how she was given an Arabic name and forced to recite Islamic prayers.

By World Israel News Staff

Hamas terrorists holding Israeli hostages captive forcibly Islamized their female victims in some case, while subjecting them to constant psychological abuse, a former hostage told The Washington Post in an interview published this week.

Seventeen-year-old Agam Goldstein-Almog, who was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7th, recalled her time in captivity, and the abuse she and other female captives suffered.

Renamed Salsabil – an Arabic name referenced in the Quran – Goldstein-Almog was forced to wear a hijab and to recite Islamic prayers.

Held at gunpoint for 51 days alongside her mother and two siblings, Goldstein-Almog said she and her family were regularly threatened by guards who would not tolerate crying or any other noise.

At the same time, she recalls guards at times offering her perfumes and other looted goods.

In other instances, guards threatened to kill the family if Israeli forces located them, while simultaneously claiming that Israel had abandoned the captives.

Goldstein-Almog says the psychological torture included threats that she and her family would remain in Gaza for years, and that she would be given in marriage to a Gazan man.

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Her captors also described their plans for future attacks on Israel – on a larger scale.

“They would be yelling at us that this country is theirs. They said that their aim was to pray in Jerusalem. They told us that when they come back, they’ll come back bigger and stronger. They told us Hamas in Gaza is about 40,000 fighters and that next time, all 40,000 will come, and not 3,000.”

During her time in Hamas tunnels, Goldstein-Almog encountered six women, some of whom were badly wounded, and some of whom testified to being raped by terrorists.

While she did not reveal whether she had been sexually assaulted herself, Goldstein-Almog alluded to her treatment in captivity in a series of questions she posed, aimed at Israeli women still in captivity.

“Have you eaten enough today? Are you together, or have they separated you? Has he harmed you again? Has he asked you, again, if you’re married; if he could set you up with someone from Gaza?”

“Has he gone into your shower again, stripped off the pajamas that he gave you, touched the wound from the bullet that he shot, that really hurt you?”