October 7 · Personal story
Amit Soussana
Abducted
October 7, 2023
Abduction location
Her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza
Current outcome
Released alive · November 30, 2023
Released alive after 55 days in captivity.
01
Life before October 7
Amit Soussana was a lawyer and one of the first graduates of the law faculty at Sapir College. From 2015 she worked in the overseas filing department of the Luzzatto Group’s Omer office. She lived alone in the young-adults neighborhood of Kibbutz Kfar Aza. She was 40 when the attack reached her home on October 7, 2023.
02
Abduction
As gunfire approached, Soussana hid in a narrow wardrobe inside her safe room. Her final message to the family said she could hear the attackers outside and that her phone battery was running out. Contact then stopped. Footage later showed her resisting as she was dragged toward Gaza. For about 20 days her family did not know what had happened to her; only toward the end of October were they told she had been abducted. Her small home was burned out.
03
Captivity
In testimony reported in March and April 2024, Soussana described spending about three weeks alone in a dark child’s bedroom, chained by her ankle. She needed permission to use the toilet and depended on her guard for food. She said the guard, whom she called Muhammad, sexually assaulted her at gunpoint around October 24. After being moved to another apartment, she was held with four other hostages. She described guards beating her with a rifle butt, tying her hands and suspending her from a pole between two couches during an interrogation lasting about 45 minutes. Another hostage feared she would be killed. Soussana explained that the same captors who harmed her also controlled her food and protection, leaving her dependent on them.
04
Return
Soussana was released alive on November 30, 2023, the final day of the weeklong truce, after 55 days in captivity. At Wolfson Medical Center, she reunited with her mother and sister. She later recalled looking from the helicopter that carried her to meet her family and seeing the moon. She chose to speak publicly about her experiences after returning.
05
After return
In March 2024, Soussana chose to speak publicly about sexual abuse in captivity. She said she wanted the world to know what had happened to her and other hostages. She had given a detailed account to medical professionals and a social worker immediately after release. She also took part in Screams Before Silence, a documentary about sexual crimes on October 7, which was scheduled to premiere in late April.