Female IDF soldiers were raped and sex-trafficked in an Israel prison. I have some questions. BIG questions.

The story of women prison guards being used by their superior to offer sexual favors to a violent terrorist takes sexual assault in this country to a whole new level.

CONTENT WARNING: SEXUAL ASSAULT, RAPE, AND SEX TRAFFICKING

The Israeli public was shocked this week to learn that a former female prison guard and IDF soldier was forced by her commander to go alone into the cell of a violent terrorist criminal in order to sexually “service” the prisoner. We further learned that she was not alone, that this was common practice, that there have been many victims, and they have been complaining about it for years.

The soldier, who is known under the pseudonym “Hila”, opened up a crowd-funding campaign through her lawyer, Keren Barak, in order to provide emotional, economic, and legal support. Hila writes:

My commanding officer, my superiors, the ones who I thought were supposed to protect me, handed me over to this terrorist. They made sure that I would be alone with him, against clear guidelines, in order for him to cruelly torture me and sexually abuse me over and over again. And not just me, also many other female prison guards….

He could have killed me, or taken me hostage, just the two of us, without handcuffs or bars. He is a convicted murderer! A terrorist! What were they thinking to themselves? That he would ‘just’ have fun with me? That it’s okay? That it’s okay to sacrifice a female soldier in exchange for information? Quiet? Money? I can’t even imagine what they got in exchange for a female soldier’s body.

Photo of the back of a head of a woman with brown hair behind prison bars. The image comes from the crowd-funding campaign for “Hila”, victim of sexual assault and sex trafficking in the Gilboa prison in Israel where she worked as a guard.

In a report on the story in Ynet, Hila, who served from 2014-2017, said that, “Since then, my life has been hell.” She also said that, “This was an open secret” and that “maybe they were hoping that I would take the secret to my grave. Maybe they thought I would commit suicide or run away or hide in shame. But no more! I’m done being silent, I am done feeling ashamed. I am not at fault! It’s the state that should be ashamed! No more being silent!”

The rapist-slash-terrorist-slash-john is apparently a man named Mahmoud Attalla. (I have been trying to verify what he was imprisoned for, but have not been able to track down that information yet.)

The story was confirmed on Wednesday by current Gilboa Prison commander Freddy Ben Shitrit who said that female guards were regularly used as “bargaining chips” with inmates in order to get concessions from the prisoners. He said the prison “pimped soldiers” and “they handed over female soldiers to terrorists for sexual purposes.” The current Israel Prisons Service Commissioner Katy Perry has now vowed to investigate the allegations, calling them “severe and difficult” in a letter to all prison guards in the system.

*****

This case takes sexual assault in Israel to a whole new level. First of all, it involves not only rape and assault but also sex trafficking. The accusation is that IDF commanders were acting like pimps, treating the soldiers under their command as sexual objects for sale. That is not just sexual assault but organized sexual assault. Calculated, planned, and organized as some kind of a strategy.

Second of all, it implicates the IDF, the prison service, the State Attorney, and the Police who were all informed about this. The trafficking was done on an institutional level, on behalf of Israel state organizations, having something to do with “military intelligence” and “security” or whatever. It is a damning portrait of IDF-Shabak-Prison Service shenanigans. For those who are still hanging on to the idea that the IDF is “the most moral army in the world”, that Israel can do no wrong in the fight against whatever it is we’re fighting against, maybe this story will blow up that myth once and for all.

Third of all, it brings into question what is meant by “security issues”. It is a reminder that for many people in charge of things in Israel, anything is considered justifiable in the name of “fighting terror”. (As if that was really going on here.) Israelis have long looked away at what our security services are doing behind closed doors, far away from public lights and cameras. But now we know that what goes on behind closed doors is not necessarily what we imagine might be going on. It’s very possibly worse. Nothing close to protecting people. And very possibly the exact opposite. Possibly the exact opposite of protecting the well-being of the people who live here.

And what does it say about women? What is the real role of women is this world of army, terror, security, or whatever we are calling this culture?

That is my question.

What does this tell us about the surrounding cultures? The ones that enabled this story to happen for years?

Put simply, how did this happen? In how many locations within our governing bodies and military organizations were people looking away? Or encouraging this?

That is the big question.

Because sexual abuse rarely takes place in a vacuum. That was one of my strongest findings in my research on sexual abuse in the Jewish community. Sexual predators, especially those with high profiles or in positions of power, are able to get away with what they do because surrounding cultures allow them to. These cultures may be ones in which donors are untouchable, where rabbis are over-valued for their charisma or public persona, where the abusers wields a lot of “protektzia”, where patriarchal ideas are assumed, where organizational image is the most valued and protected, or worse.

Or worse. This case looks like an example of something even more sinister. Of people not only hanging on to their jobs but also protecting an entire political-military apparatus in which women are just little pawns.

So how did this happen?

I think we are starting to get some answers. Although current heads Perry and Ben Shitrit are now supporting an investigation, PM Lapid and two MKs are calling for investigations, that has not been the case until now. The portrait of who knew and who was part of this over the past nearly decade — in the IDF, the Prison Service, the Police, the cabinet, and the State Attorney’s office — is starting to emerge. And it’s not pretty.

Let me break it down for you.

This is a page from today’s Yediot Aharonot with portraits and descriptions of the people in power who allowed, enabled, or even supported the trafficking of female soldiers in the Gilboa prison. In Hebrew. translations and explanations below.