Multiple Israeli women have testified to a joint Knesset committee, accusing senior figures of involvement in ritual abuse. One survivor said that her harrowing experience is only “a drop in the ocean” compared to the thousands of victims.

Police have acknowledged the allegations and say a ‘national intelligence unit’ is reviewing the evidence.

The women testified to a joint session of the Knesset’s ‘Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality’ and the ‘Special Committee on Young Israelis’, after a report by Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom exposed allegations of systemic and systematic abuse under the guise of religious ceremonies.

Witnesses told MKs of organised networks trafficking and abusing children across Israel, including drugging and torture and forcing children to harm each other. Some described being coerced into harming other minors as part of rituals, along with threats of reprisal if they ever revealed what had happened. As well as Israel parliamentarians, doctors, teachers, senior police officers and other officials were accused of either taking part or enabling and hiding the abuse. Where victims had dared to lodge complaints, many cases were closed without further action.

Dr Naama Goldberg, head of the NGO Lo Omdot MeNegged, said the accusations had long been dismissed but that their frequency and the number of corroborating accounts forced her to take them seriously, adding that the “incredulity of the stories serves the abusers” and accusing police of refusing to take action or even respond meaningfully.

Knesset member Pnina Tameno-Shete admitted that the state had not acted properly over the “unimaginable cases of monstrosity.”

In April Shoshana Strook, the daughter of an Israeli government minister, came forward to accuse her parents of raping her as a child and of filming as she was raped by others, including family members.