Freed Israeli hostage says he was sexually abused: "The goal was to humiliate me..."

A former Israeli hostage who was released last month has told Israeli television that he was sexually abused during two years of captivity in Gaza, the BBC reports.

In an interview for the "Hazinor" program on Channel 13, Rom Braslavski (21), described how members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) organization stripped him and tied him up.

"It was sexual violence, and its main purpose was humiliation. The goal was to humiliate me, to destroy my dignity," he said.

He is the first man to publicly accuse himself of being sexually abused while held hostage.

Warning: This article contains details that some readers may find disturbing.

Rom Braslavsky was on leave from service in the Israeli army and working as a security guard at the Nova music festival when Hamas and affiliated Palestinian armed groups attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1.200 people and taking 251 hostages.

Israel responded to the attacks by launching a military campaign in Gaza that, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry in the region, has claimed more than 68.800 lives.

Four weeks ago, Braslavsky was among the last 20 surviving Israeli hostages who were freed as part of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas brokered by the United States (US).

In an interview with Channel 13, which aired on Thursday evening, Braslavsky said that his abuse by the PIJ rapidly worsened after he refused to convert from Judaism to Islam in March of this year, which was also the time when the previous ceasefire collapsed.

He said he was kept blindfolded for three weeks, his ears were blocked with stones to limit his hearing, and his food and water were reduced.

After that, he added, his captors were "ordered" to torture him.

Braslavsky said he was tied up, beaten and whipped with metal wire – and that this was repeated several times a day.

"I entered a vicious circle, I doubted I would get out of it alive," he said.

In August 2025, PIJ released a video showing Braslavsky crying and saying that he had run out of food and water, that he could not stand or walk, and that he was "on the verge of death."

After the video was released, Braslavsky told Channel 13 that his captors began sexually abusing him.

"They stripped me down to the skin, took off my underwear, everything. They tied me up... When I was completely naked, I was exhausted, dying without food, and I prayed to God: 'Save me, get me out of this,'" he said.

When asked if his captors had done anything else similar, Braslavsky replied: "Yes. It's hard for me to talk about this act specifically. I don't like to talk about it. And that's hard. It was horrible."

He added: "You just pray to God to make it stop. And while I was there, every day, every beating, every day I said to myself, 'I've survived another day in hell. Tomorrow morning I'm going to wake up in another hell. And another hell.'"

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Braslavsky had shown "extraordinary courage in sharing the horrors of his captivity, including the horrific sexual assault he suffered."

"The world must understand the scale of the crimes committed by terrorists in Gaza, the abhorrent cruelty, sexual violence and abuse," he wrote on the X platform.

According to Reuters, at least four women held hostage have spoken publicly about alleged cases of sexual abuse against them or other hostages.

A PIJ official told Reuters that Braslavsky's allegations of sexual abuse were "incorrect," without further explanation.

The United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Sexual Violence in Conflict said in March 2024 that she and a team of experts had found "compelling information" about rape and sexual torture carried out on some hostages in Gaza. They also found reason to believe that sexual violence occurred in multiple locations, including rapes and gang rapes, during the October 7 attack. Hamas said the report's findings were "unfounded."

A special report by a UN commission of inquiry in March 2025 concluded that Israel had "increasingly committed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians", including "forced stripping and public nudity, sexual harassment, including threats of rape, and sexual assault". Israel called the allegations "baseless".

Last week, the former top prosecutor of the Israeli military resigned after claiming responsibility for the leak of a video purporting to show soldiers abusing a Palestinian prisoner at a base in Israel last year. The prisoner was treated for serious injuries after he was allegedly stabbed in the rectum. Five soldiers have been charged in connection with the incident.