The daughter of a freed Israeli hostage expressed her anger during a Knesset session on Tuesday, asking why Israel’s decision-makers aren’t present to listen to reports on the sexual violence hostages in Gaza are going through.
"The important people, the decision-makers are not hearing these stories," said Shir Siegel.
"Where are they to listen, to shed a tear?" she told the Knesset at a special session on sexual and gender violence during the Israel-Hamas War.
Her mother, Aviva Siegel, who was freed from captivity, detailed during this session the sexual violence she claimed hostages held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip face.
Aviva said the captives are treated like "puppets on a string."
Israeli officials say victim testimonies and evidence gathered by rights groups indicate that Hamas militants carried out widespread sexual and gender-based crimes during their Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel.
Hamas has rejected allegations that its gunmen committed sexual assault.
"They are being raped there (in Gaza), and no one reports it. My mother shouldn't be here telling these stories. You should go to the Cabinet members and tell them these stories," Shir said.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead with the offensive until "complete victory" against Hamas, which started the war with its Oct. 7 assault across the border, killing some 1,200 people in Israel and abducting 250 others.
Around 100 hostages were freed under a weeklong cease-fire deal in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Around 130 remain captive, but a number have since been confirmed dead.
The fighting has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, displaced some 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million people and triggered a humanitarian catastrophe that has spread hunger, malnutrition and disease across the embattled coastal enclave.