Reads – Page 206 – Amanda Unvarnished

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· 21 Av 5784 (Sunday 25 August 2024) · 0 minutes to read

Hostage describes abuse in Hamas captivity, threats to marry her off as ‘slave wife’ forever lost in Gaza

Former hostage Agam Goldstein-Almog describes the abuse and hatred she endured as a captive of Hamas and the antisemitism she experienced after she was released. In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, Goldstein-Almog discussed her childhood in Kfar Azza, during which she would periodically have to run for shelter when Hamas fired rockets. However, nothing prepared her for October 7th, when terrorists murdered her father Nadav and her sister Yam and took her, her mother, and two younger brothers captive. While she was being taken to Gaza, she saw young people rejoicing at her grief. Goldstein-Almog wrote, “Arriving in Gaza, the car was surrounded by a mob, mostly people who appeared to be about my own age, 17, or younger. They smiled and laughed as I wept.” She recounted the humiliations she endured from guards who hated her for being Jewish and the sexual abuse reported by other female captives. “My Hamas guards hated me for being Jewish, so I was coerced into reciting Islamic prayers and made to wear a hijab,” she wrote. “I was forbidden from mourning my father and sister, and often ordered to look down at the ground. Six female hostages I met in a tunnel told me about men with guns who came into their shower rooms and touched their bodies,” she added. Goldstein-Almog said hearing about the sexual abuse of other female captives was “agonizing” and added that one of the guards threatened that she would be married off as a “slave wife” and would be lost in Gaza forever. Agam’s mother, Chen, spoke courageously to the guard and defended her daughter, protecting her to the best of her ability. She describes that she was crowded into a school hall filled with Gazan women and children one morning. From their cheers when they heard Hamas rockets being launched nearby, Goldstein-Almog began to understand that she and the rest were being used as human shields. Agam Goldstein-Almog and the rest of her family who had been captured were freed after 51 days in captivity as Gazan civilians screamed “Die! Die! Die!” to the released hostages as they left. However, her release from Gaza wasn’t the end to the hate she would experience. Agam Goldstein-Almog wrote, “One of my fantasies was that we would be freed and the world would embrace us. But the world I came back to was deeply divided and seething with anger. The hatred that I thought I had left behind in Gaza was waiting for me online.” She explained, “My social media feeds were flooded with trolls, falsehoods and conspiracy theories, all with seemingly one objective: driving hate. The comment sections of news articles mentioning my name were battlefields, as hatred from one side was met with hatred from the other.” Agam Goldstein-Almog was shocked by the intensity of the antisemitism waiting after her liberation, with radicals often expressing sympathy for people like her captors. She wrote, “I have watched as the movement in the West for a Gaza cease-fire sometimes devolves into full-throated support for Hamas and the hounding of Jews in public spaces. I’m sure my kidnappers still hate me, but when American students call for “intifada” or chant in praise of Hamas terrorists “Al-Qassam, you make us proud,” I’m reminded that many other people do, too.”Image - WIN/Youtube screenshot

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