Hamas drugged and abused child hostages whom the terror group abducted in their Oct. 7 attacks, an Israeli medical director said Monday, in the latest report of Hamas's horrific treatment of captives.
"One of the girls was given ketamine for a few weeks," said Dr. Renana Eitan, who directs the psychiatric division at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center-Ichilov, according to the Times of Israel, calling it "unbelievable" to do such a thing to a child. The Drug Enforcement Agency identifies the drug as a "dissociative anesthetic hallucinogen" that makes users feel "detached" from their environment.
Doctors also believe Hamas gave hostages benzodiazepines, which the DEA classifies as a type of depressant that includes Valium and Xanax, in order to "control the kids," drugging them so that "they will be quiet," Eitan said. Her hospital is treating 14 hostages the terror group released, who reported abuse at the hands of Hamas.
"The physical, sexual, mental, psychological abuse of these hostages who came back is just terrible," said Eitan. "We have to rewrite the textbook."
Such abuse included falsely telling a man his wife was dead, separating children from their families, and holding some hostages in complete darkness for days, causing them to have hallucinations. Some also committed self-harm in captivity, had thoughts of suicide, or are now experiencing dissociative states in which they believe they are still with the terrorists.
Hamas took about 240 hostages during their attacks, 105 of whom they have released thus far. The terror group released some of the hostages as part of a now-ended temporary truce between it and Israel. As the hostages have comes home, reports have surfaced of their treatment in captivity.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller suggested—though he said he did not know it as a fact—that Hamas is not releasing some women so they do not "talk about what happened to them." Reports surfaced last week that 10 hostages, both men and women, faced sexual abuse, while the terrorists held them.