Freed Israeli hostages told the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, this week about the sexual abuse committed by Hamas terrorists against both male and female hostages in Gaza, according to Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy in a briefing on Tuesday.

Levy quoted former hostage Chen Goldstein-Almog, 48, who told the Knesset that some female hostages had stopped having their periods in captivity — which, she said, she hoped was a physical defense against becoming pregnant from rape by their captors.

Others reportedly had added that Hamas terrorists were also dressing female hostages as dolls in order to abuse them in sadistic ways. And they said that male hostages were also being sexually abused and raped.

The Times of Israel reported:

“I saw it with my own eyes,” said former hostage Aviva Siegel, who was abducted from Kibbutrz Kfar Aza with her husband Keith on October 7 and released during a ceasefire in late November.

“I felt as if the girls in captivity were my daughters. The terrorists bring inappropriate clothes, clothes for dolls and turn the girls into their dolls. Dolls on a string with which you can do whatever you want, whenever you want,” she told a meeting of the newly established Knesset caucus on victims of sexual and gender violence in the war against Hamas.

…

Some of the women who remain in Gaza have stopped getting their periods, Chen Goldstein Almog, who was released alongside three of her four children during the ceasefire, said during Tuesday’s hearing.

Levy spoke on a day when Israelis learned that 24 Israeli soldiers had been killed the day before — three in fighting in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, and 21 soldiers, all reservists, in buildings near the border fence that collapsed when they were hit by Palestinian rocket propelled-grenades that detonated explosives as the buildings were being prepared for demolition.

Asked by Breitbart News whether the heavy losses made Israelis question the cost of the war, or more determined to fight, Levy replied:

“The emotional cost of waking up to such horrific news is, of course, intense. Everyone in the country is now discovering how they are related or connected to those hostages …

“But the people of Israel understand very clearly why we are fighting this war, which was not a war of choice. …

“They understand that Hamas will not stop until it is stopped. … If we return to the lines of October 6, it will only be a matter time until Hamas perpetrates another atrocity again.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the 2021 e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now updated with a new foreword. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

This post has been updated.