Police have opened an investigation into multiple allegations of organized ritual sexual abuse after accusers relayed harrowing testimony of torture, rape and other horrors to lawmakers late last month.

The July 27 hearing included testimony from alleged victims, now adults, regarding abuse they had experienced as children, primarily in the ultra-Orthodox and national-religious communities in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Haifa, Safed and elsewhere.

Accusers recounted tales of gruesome sexual abuse they experienced as children, usually by groups of people, involving ritualistic, religious rhetoric and iconography. The abuse took place in schools, synagogues, private homes, warehouses, cemeteries and forests, they alleged.

The testimony left MKs from the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality and the Special Committee on Youth Affairs visibly shaken, several in tears.

Several women alleged that religious and community leaders had participated in the abuse. One woman named Yael Ariel testified that she had heard accounts from several women alleging that “doctors, educators, police officers, and both former and current Knesset members” took part.

Others who recounted their experiences requested anonymity to speak openly about the ghastly tortures they underwent.

“I was around 15, tied to a torture bed in basements in the Tel Aviv area,” said one women, recalling an incident in which her abusers — including family members — slaughtered a snake, mixed its blood with hers and drank it, while raping her and calling her a “holy vessel.”

“They tied me up in every possible way, using whips and electric shocks, raping me,” said another survivor, who testified that she was 5 years old when she began suffering “unbearable abuse,” including by religious leaders and educators who told her that she was “defective” and needed to be “fixed.”

Another accuser said that her father and others abused and trafficked her as a child in “sadistic networks involving rituals,” allegedly including well-known figures, including politicians.

Several victims noted that many of the incidents were filmed on cameras or phones.

“It’s hard to explain what happens there,” she said. “There are children, cameras, blood, and death.”

A focus of the two hearings, and an earlier meeting in June on the same subject, was the alleged failure to protect children. Accusers charged that authorities, including educators, social workers, and police, were alerted to crimes being committed but took no action.

Prosecutors are accused of having dismissed cases as not worth their time, and, in some instances, community leaders themselves are alleged to have taken part in the abuse.

“The police received material about this a year ago, and said they would investigate, but they didn’t,” said Orit Sulitzeanu, the executive director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, who has been working with victims of organized ritual sexual abuse for over a year to bring their claims to light.

“There are many problems in the Israel Police. Complaints often aren’t followed up on. Cases are closed quickly. As a result, victims feel like there’s no point in going to the police,” she said.

In response to an inquiry from The Times of Israel, the police said: “Every complaint received by the police is examined in depth and professionally, and investigators work as necessary to examine possible connections between........

© The Times of Israel