In an interview with Channel 13's Hazinor programme, Rom Braslavski, 21, described being stripped naked and tied up by members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). "It was sexual violence, and its main purpose was humiliation. Its goal was to humiliate me, to crush my dignity," he said. He is the first man held hostage to allege publicly that he was sexually assaulted.

Rom Braslavski was on leave from his service as a soldier in the Israeli military and was working as a security guard at the Nova music festival when Hamas and allied Palestinian armed groups attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others as hostages. Israel responded to the attacks by launching a military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 68,800 people, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. Four weeks ago, Mr Braslavski was among the last 20 living Israeli hostages who were released under a US-brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

In the interview with Channel 13, broadcast late on Thursday, Mr Braslavski said his treatment by PIJ deteriorated rapidly after he had refused to convert from Judaism to Islam in March this year, which was also when the previous ceasefire collapsed. He said he was kept blindfolded for three weeks, had stones pushed into his ears to limit his hearing, and had his rations of food and water reduced. Then, he added, his captors received what they described as an order to torture him. Mr Braslavski said they tied him up, punched him, and whipped him with a metal cable – and that this was repeated several times a day. "I entered into a loop, which I doubted I would come out of alive," he recalled. (BBC)