Hamas Release Images of Starving Israeli Hostages

Hamas has released video of emaciated Israeli hostages being held in Gaza in an apparent attempt to weaponise starvation.

Evyatar David, 24, from the city of Kfar Saba, is seen inside a tunnel, bare-chested, with only a dirty mattress and a small bottle of water.

Mr David, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival on Oct 7 2023, does not say anything in the video, which also shows images of emaciated Palestinian children.

“They eat what we eat, they drink what we drink,” a message from Hamas says, accusing Israel of starving everyone in Gaza, including the hostages.

Mr David’s sister, Ye’ela, said watching the clip of her emaciated brother felt like “one million punches to the heart”. She pleaded with the public not to share the images, as her mother and other brother had not yet seen the footage.

Earlier on Thursday, the Islamic Jihad terrorist group released a video of hostage Rom Braslavski, 21, also looking emaciated.

The terror group claimed the six-minute video was recorded days before it lost contact with the captors holding Mr Braslavski, saying it did not know what had happened to him.

His mother, Tami, said the terrorists had “broken” her son. “They broke my boy. I want him home now. I know how many beatings he is taking. Look at him. Thin, limp, crying. All his bones are out. Don’t cry over the children in Gaza. Cry for Rom. Have compassion for the hostages,” she told Israeli media Ynet.

With two hostage videos released in 24 hours, both of which blame Israel for starving the people of Gaza, Hamas seeks to increase international pressure on the Israeli government.

Aid agencies including the UN are warning that hunger and malnutrition may have reached a tipping point, raising fears of mass starvation.

Israel has denied accusations of starving Palestinians, instead pointing the finger at the UN for failing to collect and distribute the food that enters through border crossings.

Donald Trump, the US president, said this week that starvation was happening in Gaza, despite Benjamin Netanyahu’s denials. “You can’t fake that,” he said on Tuesday, adding that he was “not particularly” convinced by his ally.

Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s Middle East envoy, spent five hours visiting controversial aid distribution sites in the war-battered enclave on Friday.

Mr Witkoff, the first senior official to visit Gaza since the war began, said that what he learnt would help Washington “craft a plan” to get more food and aid to Palestinians.

On Friday, 126 aid packages, containing food for the residents of both the southern and northern Gaza Strip, were airdropped by France, Spain, the UAE, Jordan, Egypt and Germany, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Mr Witkoff and Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador for Israel, toured one of the four sites run by the controversial Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Aid agencies have accused the foundation of contributing to the hunger crisis.

More than 1,300 people seeking aid in Gaza have been killed since GHF took over aid operations in late May, according to the UN, most of them shot by Israeli forces “in the vicinity” of the aid hubs. GHF have denied the claims.

Israel claims Hamas is looting aid in an effort to steal for its own fighters, thus enabling accusations the Jewish state is deliberately starving Palestinians. Hamas denies this.

Eli Sharabi, an Israeli former hostage, testified before the UN Security Council in March that “Hamas eats like kings, while hostages starve.”

Mr Sharabi said: “I saw Hamas terrorists carrying boxes with the UN and UNRWA emblems on them into the tunnels, dozens and dozens of boxes, paid for by your government. They would eat many meals a day from the UN aid in front of us, and we never received any of it.”