Freed Israeli Hostage Allegedly 'Raped Inside Own Home' By Fitness Influencer

A freed Israeli hostage has accused a Tel Aviv fitness influencer of drugging and raping her inside her home earlier this year—a fear she said she had carried with her even during her captivity by Hamas following the deadly October 7, 2023 attack. In a nationally televised interview with Channel 12, she recounted her traumatic ordeal, revealing that she had been sexually assaulted in what was supposed to be a safe place. "This was my biggest fear my whole life, before captivity, during captivity," she said, according to Haaretz. "And it happened to me after captivity, in my safest place."

The 22-year-old claimed the unidentified man, a social media influencer and personal trainer, had invited her to meet with a Hollywood producer to discuss turning her story of survival in Gaza into a movie. However, the producer reportedly failed to show up, leading to a second meeting at her home. The trainer, who had previously conducted three training sessions with her, allegedly asked a friend who was present to leave before the meeting.

After the friend left, the survivor said she lost all memory of what transpired, though she described vivid physical sensations that haunted her. "My body remembers; it feels everything," she told 12 News, as reported by Haaretz. "But I don't know what happened." It took her three days to "connect the physical sensations to consciousness", and she said that fragments of her memory began to surface, including the trainer entering her room while she was undressed, and another person being present in the apartment.

After a friend suggested that she might have been drugged, she went to the police and underwent a medical examination, which showed signs of sexual intercourse and physical marks on her body. She added that the incident caused her to "lock myself inside my house, to get into extreme mental states, and at the end of the day — I’m the one that was hurt".

The trainer denied the allegations but admitted to entering her dressing room multiple times while she was changing. He was briefly detained by Israeli police in March but was released due to insufficient evidence. His lawyer has argued that the survivor returned to the gym for another session two days after the alleged assault "smiling", which she refuted, stating that she had not yet processed the traumatic event.

The survivor had a harrowing 55-day captivity in Gaza following the October 7 attack at the Nova music festival, where she was shot in the arm and abducted. She was released in a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in November 2023. During her captivity, she feared being raped by her captors, and in a previous interview, she revealed that a Hamas militant had attempted to assault her but stopped when his wife and children were present.

"The last thing I needed was an incident like this. I need a moment of peace to process my life for a second — I haven’t started processing my captivity yet," she said.

Her mother described her daughter's emotional state, saying, "When we met after the incident, she couldn't stop crying. She was bent over and crying uncontrollably. I have been in difficult situations with her, I know my daughter, but here she was in some kind of complete breakdown."

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