Agam Goldstein-Almog's testimony about the sexual crimes committed in Hamas captivity
(Video: Courtesy of the documentary film "Screams Before Silence." )
"Every time we talked about it, at least one of the girls said that they had suffered sexual and physical abuse," according to former Hamas hostage Agam Goldstein-Almog, 17. Agam was released from Hamas captivity with her mother, Chen, and her younger brothers Gal, 11, and Tal,9, after 51 days in Hamas captivity, testifies in a new film dealing with the sex crimes of Hamas terrorists on October 7 about the horrors she was exposed to in Gaza.
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"I talked to one of them one evening and I asked her how they treated her, what she had been through. She started crying and I cried with her," as she told the teen about being sexually assaulted, Agam told Sheryl Sandberg, former COO of the Meta company, who filmed in Israel the documentary film "Screams Before Silence."
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Agam Goldstein-Almog's testimony about the sexual crimes committed in Hamas captivity
(Screenshot from 'Screams Before Silence')
The film is intended for distribution at the beginning of April 2024 and was produced by Israel’s Kastina Communications, which is also behind the production of the film #NOVA, which made waves in Israel and the world, about the massacre at the music festival in Re'im.
Last week, Sandberg completed the filming of the documentary film which presents evidence of the acts of rape and sexual assault committed by the terrorists on Israeli women and girls. In an attempt to raise global awareness of the extent of the atrocities committed by Hamas, Sandberg came to Israel and interviewed, among others, freed hostages, ZAKA volunteers and police officers, medical and forensic experts, and survivors of the massacre.
Agam, who has already described the enormous difficulties of captivity in Gaza several times in speeches and interviews, also told the creator of the new film. She met several women being held hostage in Gaza. "They all talked about their kidnapping. Where she was kidnapped from, what they did to her, what she saw. Each was kidnapped from a different place. That's when we learned that some of them were held alone. They said that no one was being held alone. Only in pairs. But some of them were alone for the entire time," she said.
When asked by Sandberg what the girls she met in captivity told her, Agam replied: "I talked to one of them one evening and I asked her how they treated her, what she had been through. She started crying and I cried with her. We were crying together and then she started telling me. He told her on the last day, she was being moved to a different place. She was staying in an apartment with one guard. He told her that they had to move. 'Go get ready. Go wash yourself at the sink.'"
"She went into the bathroom and washed her armpit and then he came into the bathroom and held a gun to her head. he started kissing her and she started crying. She told me 'you know how when you cry your mouth is like this? This is what it was like, but he wouldn't stop kissing me.' He took off all her clothes and touched her all over her body. He asked her to touch his genitals in different ways and he also touched hers. She told me that she couldn't stop crying and that he wouldn't stop doing what he was doing. He enjoyed it. For 30 minutes the gun was pointed at her head," according to Agam.
"She had no choice. I asked her, 'did you do it? Did you do what he asked you to do?' She said 'what do you mean? Of course, I had no other option.' He never put his gun away from her head. And then he told her to 'go get dressed' and he left the bathroom," the teen recounted. "They went back to the living room. She told me that her ears were ringing and she couldn't stop crying, she was in shock. And they moved her to a different place and she never saw him again. He told her not to tell anybody."
Filmmaker Sandberg was interviewed Monday on Jake Tapper's show on CNN, and with teary eyes and a choked-up throat, she mentioned the conversation with Agam, who was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and talked about the girl's strength. "We should all be afraid of such cases that must not be repeated. It is impossible that a girl, a 17-year-old, anywhere in the world, should be forced to see and hear and go through such atrocities."
The CNN host asked Sandberg why she decided to direct the film. "When the evidence began to emerge after October 7, the silence was deafening even though it was clear that acts of rape and sexual violence had been committed. We must not allow silence and cover-up of such acts anywhere in the world. People denied and refused to admit that Hamas indeed committed such acts, and therefore the film will give them an opportunity to see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears from survivors about the horrors that took place and how the victims suffered in the last minutes of their lives," Sandberg replied.
Sandberg spoke about the people she met in Israel during the filming. "The people in Israel are broken as only in Israel they can be broken, and at the same time they are strong and powerful as only Israelis can be."
Producers of the new film are Carol and Joey Low, Meny Aviram and Eytan Schwartz. The director is Anat Stalinsky and the producer is Zameret Alexandrony.