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Agence France-Presse

Hostages hauled into Gaza during Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel were drugged to keep them docile in captivity and subjected to psychological and sexual abuse, a specialist said on Monday.
“I’ve never seen anything like that” in 20 years of treating trauma victims, said Renana Eitan, director of the psychiatric division of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Centre-Ichilov.
“The physical, the sexual, the mental, the psychological abuse of these hostages that came back is just terrible,” she added. “We have to rewrite the textbook.”
The centre has received 14 ex-hostages released by Hamas, some of whom reported being drugged, including with what doctors believe were benzodiazepines, a class of depressants with a sedative effect that includes drugs like Valium.

“They wanted to control the kids, and sometimes it’s difficult to control young children, adolescents. And they know that if they drug them they will be quiet,” she added.
“One of the girls was given ketamine for a few weeks,” she continued, referring to a powerful dissociative anaesthetic known for giving the recipient a sense of detachment from their environment.
Gaza battles rage as Hamas warns hostages doomed unless demands met
“It’s unbelievable to do this to a child.”
Eitan said some former hostages had also described psychological torment at the hands of their captors.
One was told his wife was dead when in fact she was still alive back in Israel, while children were separated from their families and shown “brutal videos”.
One patient said she and others were held in total darkness for more than four days.
“They became psychotic, they had hallucinations,” Eitan said.
There were also reports of self-harm among hostages in captivity, she noted, while some returnees had since professed to having suicidal thoughts.

“But this is our mission, to make sure that such things will not happen,” she added.
Ichilov has also treated hundreds of physically wounded patients, both victims of October 7 and soldiers injured in the ensuing war in the Gaza Strip.
Soldiers can be airlifted to Ichilov from the battlefield in about 15 minutes, according to vice chief of trauma surgery Eyal Hashavia.
Hamas drugged hostages before release so they looked ‘happy’: Israeli official
Hamas’s October 7 attack killed 1,200 people and saw another 240 taken hostage, Israeli officials say.
Under a one-week truce deal that ended on December 1, 105 hostages were released from Gaza, among them 80 Israelis - mostly women and children - freed in exchange for 240 Palestinians jailed by Israel.
At least 137 hostages are believed to still be in Hamas captivity.




Israel responded with a massive ground and air campaign to eliminate Hamas that has killed more than 18,200 people, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Some former hostages continue to experience dissociative states, Eitan said: “One minute they know that they are here at Ichilov medical centre, and the next they think they are back with Hamas”.
There are plans to create a centre to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after the national shock of the October attack.
Harrowing stories emerge as Hamas frees more Gaza hostages
Eitan said the mental health toll was staggering, with around five per cent of Israel’s population - some 400,000 people - expected to suffer some symptoms of PTSD.
The extreme situation puts doctors in a dilemma.
It is considered best practice not to debrief a survivor on their ordeal immediately, but Eitan said there was also an urgent need to know about the condition of other hostages.

“On one hand, we can’t do the debrief, but on the other, we need the information,” she said.
Tomer Zadik, 24, has been receiving treatment at Ichilov since being shot in the arm when Hamas fighters stormed the Supernova music festival on October 7.
He described hiding for hours as he listened to the voices of the attackers around him, before managing to escape and reunite with a group of festivalgoers and a few soldiers.
“The atrocities over there, words really can’t describe,” he said, adding that he had nightmares about the attack, though “less and less with time”.
“They wanted to break us, not only physically. They wanted to mentally break the whole nation of Israel,” he said.
“But we won’t break.”


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Israel-Gaza war

Hostages were drugged, abused in Gaza: Israeli doctor

A helicopter carrying hostages arriving at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv district, Israel on December 1. Photo: Reuters

Some of the hostages freed during the brief Israel-Hamas truce. Photos: Reuters

Hostages released on December 1. Photo: Reuters

Tomer Tzadik, who has been receiving treatment since being shot in the arm on October 7. Photo: AFP

Battles rage in Gaza as Hamas warns hostages doomed unless demands met

An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from southern Israel towards the Gaza Strip. Photo: AP

Palestinians mourn relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip outside a morgue in Khan Younis. Photo: AP

Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with shirtless Palestinian detainees in the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters

 Protesters in Tel Aviv, Israel hold signs showing portraits of Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Photo: AFP

Israeli troops near the Gaza Strip border, in southern Israel on Sunday. Photo: AP

Hamas drugged hostages before release so they looked ‘happy’, Israeli health official says

A Red Cross vehicle, part of a convoy carrying hostages abducted by Hamas militants during the October 7 attack on Israel, arrives at the Rafah border on Thursday. Photo: Reuters

Israel-Gaza war: activists decry silence over evidence of sexual violence in Hamas attacks

Demonstrators hold signs against what they describe as international silence over sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli women during the attack by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, at a protest in Jerusalem on November 27. Photo: Reuters

Signs against what protesters describe as international silence over sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli women during the attack by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, are displayed on a bench at a protest in Jerusalem on November 27. Photo: Reuters

A woman reads a newspaper in Jerusalem on Friday. Israeli women and legal activists have accused international rights groups of a conspiracy of silence over evidence of rapes and other sexual crimes committed by Hamas militants during the October 7 attacks. Photo: AFP

A demonstrator holds a placard reading “Silence, Hamas is raping” during a rally organised by the Rape is Rape committee to “denounce the silence of international and feminist organisations” on rapes committed during the attack of October 7, 2023 on Israel, in front of Unesco headquarters in Paris on Friday. Photo: AFP

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement saying the accounts of sexual violence by Hamas must be “vigorously investigated and prosecuted”. Photo: Handout via Xinhua

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White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. Photo: Reuters  

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An Israeli battle tank unit regroups near the border of Gaza, in the southern part of Israel. Photo: TNS

Chickens walk on top of rubble, at the site of Israeli strikes on houses, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis. Photo: Reuters

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Doctor describes how hostages were treated by Hamas during captivity in Gaza
Captives were given benzodiazepines, a class of depressants, as well as ketamine


Hostages hauled into Gaza during Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel were drugged to keep them docile in captivity and subjected to psychological and sexual abuse, a specialist said.


Hostages were drugged, abused in Gaza: Israeli doctor

Doctor describes how hostages were treated by Hamas during captivity in Gaza Captives were given benzodiazepines, a class of depressants, as well as ketamine

Doctor describes how hostages were treated by Hamas during captivity in Gaza

Captives were given benzodiazepines, a class of depressants, as well as ketamine