Former hostage Amit Soussana receives prestigious US award

Former hostage Amit Soussana was decorated with an International Women of Courage Award by the U.S. State Department on Tuesday as she called for a global effort to free the remaining captives held in Gaza.

Soussana, who was sexually assaulted after being taken from her Kibbutz Kfar Aza home during Hamas’s rampage through southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, was the only one of the eight award recipients asked to give a keynote speech.

“While I am here, my friends remain in the darkness, 543 long days and nights,” said Sousanna, who has advocated globally for the remaining hostages. “They are still suffering, still waiting, still hoping. Their voices remain unheard. So I will speak for them. We cannot move forward until they are free.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who offered opening remarks for the ceremony with First Lady Melania Trump, said that Sousanna’s “bravery and advocacy brings much-needed attention to the scourge of sexual violence in conflicts all over the world.”

Sousanna’s struggle to break free from a mob of terrorists violently dragging her across a field toward Gaza, kicking one of them to the ground, became one of the most iconic pieces of footage to emerge from Oct. 7.

She spent 55 days in captivity before her release as part of the first hostage release and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in November 2023 and later became the first freed hostage to speak about the sexual violence committed against her.

“In captivity, I had no control over my body, no control over my life. I resisted as best as I could, but it was not enough to stop what happened to me,” she said. “The darkness was suffocating. Yet even in the darkness, there was one thing they could not have taken from me: the strength my mother instilled in me, the belief that we must always stand for what is right, no matter the cost.”

Soussana told those in attendance on Tuesday that her story became part of a much bigger conversation—one about sexual violence, about war and about the unimaginable strength of women in the face of brutality.”

“I accept this award, not for myself, but in the name of all the brave women of Israel, the women who endure, who led, who refused to break,” Sousanna said while lamenting that for the 24 remaining hostages believed to be alive in Gaza, “Every single day that passes is another day of unimaginable suffering. With every passing moment, their pain deepens, their hope fades and their chances of survival diminish.”

The more recent Israeli-Hamas ceasefire broke down in mid-March after two months and eight rounds of exchanges of hostages and Palestinian security prisoners.

Negotiations to extend the ceasefire or move to a new phase have not been fruitful thus far, as Israel threatens a large-scale invasion to place military pressure on Hamas to free more hostages.

Some feel the operation will place in jeopardy the lives of those still held in Gaza.

“I call on the world to act to bring them home now. Not tomorrow, not next week. Now,” Sousanna said.

©️ JNS