Former hostage Ilana Gritzewsky testified on Wednesday before the UN Security Council, where she described being held for a time at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, and also recounted begging her captors not to rape her, as well as experiencing starvation, beatings, and other horrifying conditions during her 55 days in captivity.
“On the way to Gaza, when they started to touch me and sexually abuse me, I passed out physically and mentally. I couldn’t handle it anymore,” she said in testimony to the world body, according to a transcript published by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
“I had to beg not to be raped, telling them I was on my period,” she continued. “I didn’t know exactly what had been done to my body in those lost minutes when I wasn’t conscious. But my soul already knew: nothing would ever be the same. I was suffering from a fractured jaw, a broken pelvis, ear damage from the explosions, and a burned leg.”
She also spoke about being held along with other hostages in Nasser hospital. An Israeli strike on the hospital on Monday, which reportedly killed 20 people, including five journalists, elicited widespread anger worldwide. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack a “tragic mishap,” though the IDF said the strike targeted a Hamas surveillance camera at the hospital.
“They took us through the back entrance and walked us past all the civilians. In the hospital, there was an area that was closed off and used only by Hamas, with an armed guard. They locked us in a room, where we met a third hostage,” she recounted.
On the same day as her testimony, all Security Council members, except the United States, decried a “manmade crisis” of famine in Gaza, and warned that the use of starvation as a weapon of war is banned under international humanitarian law.
In a joint statement, the 14 council members called for an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza war, the release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups, a substantive surge of aid throughout Gaza, and for Israel to immediately and unconditionally lift all restrictions on aid delivery.
Israel has denied reports of famine and widespread starvation in Gaza, and recently took steps to increase the flow of aid. It has accused the UN of delays in distributing aid and has said Hamas steals the supplies.
Gritzewsky, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz alongside her partner Matan Zangauker, who is one of 50 hostages who remain held by Hamas in Gaza, said she lost 12 kilograms (26.5 pounds) while in Gaza before being released during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023.
“When it was time to eat, they took a lot of food to their room,” she said. “They had meat, rice, and vegetables. At the same time, they left us with our meal, which contained sometimes as little as 10 chickpeas or a piece of dry flat bread, which wasn’t always well-cooked.”
She said her captors, who would subject her and other captives to cruel interrogations, were dressed not as Hamas fighters but as civilians, including one who claimed to be a teacher and another who said they were a lawyer.
She has recounted many of these details in the past, and told council members to use whatever leverage they have to push for a deal ending the war and freeing the hostages.
“Do not turn away. Do not look for excuses. Do not allow political divisions to silence the voices of victims. Use your influence, your power, your responsibility, to demand the unconditional release of every hostage. Not tomorrow. Not in some distant future. But now. We need to make a deal. Israeli citizens want this war to end,” she said.