Hila (not her real name), a former guard at Gilboa Prison, spoke to Reshet Bet Radio on Sunday morning about the threats she received from terrorist Mahmoud Atallah, who is about to be released in the current hostage deal.
In addition to the murder for which he was serving a prison sentence, he is also serving a sentence for the rape of female prison guards at the facility where he was incarcerated. Hila, who was attacked by the terrorist, talks about the threats he sent her from prison and is afraid of the moment he will be released.
"He knows a lot of personal details about me – who my parents are, where I live, that my fiancé is an IDF soldier in Nablus. He is sure that my child is his child," Hila said with great concern, "I am warning about this before anything happens. He threatened me that he would haunt me for the rest of his life, that he would take me to Nablus. I have sacrificed too much and too many times already."
Hila said that the prison service did not prepare her or the other guards for Atallah's release: "Mentally, I am suffering from a crazy regression – staring into space, crying and having angry outbursts. Throughout this whole story, there was always someone that had an interest in interrupting the indictment and silencing me," she claimed in pain.
She compared between the lack of warning about his release or response she received to the lack of attention that the lookouts in Gaza experienced before the October 7 massacre: "I warned the authorities before the rape. I said to the intelligence officer and my commanders, ‘He's strange. He talks to me about things he's not supposed to.' After he touched me, I went to them and told them and they said, 'Okay.' I feel that the security forces here are very clever in hindsight. "In retrospect we should have listened to her, in retrospect we should have listened to the female lookouts."
According to Hila, Hamas did not request that Atallah be released as part of the deal: "I am sure that there is no way that Hamas or Fatah requested him. I am sure that someone from the security forces found it convenient for him to be released, so that they will have quiet, and that the entire truth will not come to light."
The former prison guards submitted a petition to the High Court, which was rejected, and also approached Defense Minister Israel Katz demanding that the terrorist accused of rape not be released. "Defense Minister Katz did not bother responding, nothing, absolutely nothing," said Hila.
