‘Forced to work as sex slave in prison’, claims ex-Israeli guard

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Sunday, July 31, vowed to investigate allegations by a former Gilboa prison guard that she was repeatedly raped by a Palestinian prisoner, and forced into sex slavery by her superiors.

For several years, the Israeli media has reported that female guards were assaulted by Gilboa prison inmates, but the prison administration came under new scrutiny in September last year when six Palestinian prisoners escaped from Gilboa by digging a tunnel from their cells through the sewage system, in an escape that grabbed international headlines.

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP) report, last week, a woman who identified herself as a former Gilboa guard, and remained unidentified, posted an online testimony in which she said that a Palestinian prisoner repeatedly raped her.

She said her supervisors handed her over to him and she became his sex slave.

“I didn’t want to be raped and used over and over again,” she added.

The woman’s lawyer, Keren Barak, confirmed her testimony on Israel’s Channel 12 at the weekend, saying her client needed psychological support after the ordeal.

The case was one of several high-profile incidents of violence against women in Israel in recent weeks.

Last week, a man stabbed his daughter to death before killing himself in an apartment in Beit Shemesh. In another case, a schoolteacher was shot dead while her two-year-old daughter was playing on her lap in the central city of Lod. Her ex-husband had threatened her several times before the shooting.

On Sunday, July 31, in response, Lapid took to Twitter and spoke about the attacks and alleged rapes committed by professional footballers, saying the violence was “a stain on the country and it cannot continue.”

Although all of these cases are different from one another, they have one common denominator; the horrific violence directed against women. “Our responsibility as a society and our duty as a government is to eradicate this phenomenon,” Lapid tweeted.

Lapid said he spoke to Perry and Homeland Security Minister Omar Bar-Lev on Saturday, July 30, about the Gilboa prison allegations.

“The incident, which is under review and which occurred under the previous government, is subject to a gag order, but it must – and will – be investigated.”

He further added, “We will make sure that the soldier receives assistance, we will bring the culprits to justice and we will ensure that such events will not happen again.”