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'Liri Albag saved my life in Gaza': ex-hostage Amit Soussana
Wrongly suspected of being a senior officer in the IDF, the Israeli woman reveals she underwent brutal interrogations before Albag's intervention
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In a poignant interview that aired Tuesday night on Channel 12's "Uvda" show, Amit Soussana, whoo was released during the first hostage exchange with Hamas in November 2023, delivered a moving testimony about her captivity, revealing previously unknown details of her ordeal.
From the moment of her abduction, during which she strongly resisted the terrorists, the 41-year-old Israeli woman suffered severe physical violence. "They split my lip, broke my nose and eye socket," she recounts, before adding: "I didn't feel any pain. I just remember thinking to myself: 'They're going to kill me, so at least I won't go down without a fight.'"
Her testimony reveals inhumane detention conditions. "It is dark in Gaza, you open your eyes and think they are still closed," she described. Permanently tied up, she had to ask for permission for the most basic needs. She also spoke again about the sexual assaults she had been subjected to. Amit Soussana is to this day the only hostage to have publicly reported this type of violence during her captivity.
After three weeks, her transfer to another terrorist group marked the beginning of a new phase of torment. Wrongly suspected of being a senior officer of the Israel Defense Forces, she underwent brutal interrogations. "They tied me up like a roast chicken, head down, with tape on my face," she detailed.
It was the intervention of another hostage, Liri Albag, which put an end to this ordeal. "Liri is something special, she has an incredible strength," emphasized Amit, who claims that the young soldier, who was also just released by Hamas, had "saved her life."
Soussana finally revealed that one of her tormentors' children had previously received treatment for eye cancer at Hadassah Hospital in Israel.