“What I’m doing now is digging my grave,” says Eviater David as his fragile figure, shovel-suppressed hunger in the fierce gaza tunnel.
“Every day, my body gets weaker and weaker,” adds the 24-year-old hostage.
This is just one of the horrifying scenes recorded in the latest hostage video released by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad over the weekend, showing two Israeli hostages lured on October 7, 2023 and suddenly deteriorated in captivity.
The broadcast of disturbing images across Israel and international media was approved by the families of traumatized hostages.
“Eviyatar was a young, healthy man before he was accused. He was still a bit chubby. Now he looks like a skeleton, a human skeleton.
Rom Braslavski, only 22 years old, appears even more disastrous. In a video of a Palestinian Islamic jihad group embracing him, his weakened body is shown feeling pain on the makeshift Gaza prison floor, pleading with tears for relief.
“My legs don’t look very well and I can’t walk to the bathroom. I don’t have enough food or water. I can’t sleep. I can’t live,” he sobs.
His own mother says that her son’s weak voice sounds like an acknowledge that he is not alive.
The video doesn’t warn that “the worst-case scenario of hunger” is unfolding on the territory this week amid the worsening hunger crisis in Gaza. Gaza health officials say 13 more people have died of malnutrition over the weekend, including one child, since the conflict began in 2023 with at least 175 people.
It all puts more pressure on the Israeli government, already facing increasing international isolation against Gaza’s devastating humanitarian situation, and now faces a new call to return the remaining 50 hostages home from Gaza.
The best way to do that is one of the important questions to divide Israeli opinions.
“The horror video by Hamas came from one goal: their attempts to put pressure on the state of Israel,” said Itmar Ben Gwil, a brand of fire on the right, in a statement made over the weekend during a visit to the mountains of the sacred temple.
“We need to send a message from here, to conquer the entire Gaza Strip, to declare all Gaza sovereignty, to eliminate all Hamas members, and to encourage voluntary immigration. Only in this way can we regain hostages and win the war.”
His call to double down on Israel’s already devastating military action in Gaza and essentially oust the local Palestinian population could be dismissed as the devastation of Fringe militants.
However, Ben Gwil is a senior minister of the Israeli government, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu relies on him and other Jewish nationalists hardliners.
Furthermore, Israeli media reports suggest that Netanyahu may actually be leaning towards strengthening military operations in Gaza.
In the past, many Israelis, including many hostage families, accused Netanyahu of intentionally extending the conflict in Gaza to maintain his ruling coalition, and accused him of essentially sacrificing their loved ones of power.
But frankly, the latest hostage video showing prisoners who were weakened in a state of creepy anger has sparked shock and rage throughout Israel.
The hostage family is confident that time will run out before their loved ones are rescued or returned, so there is a great deal of pressure on the Israeli government to make a deal with Hamas before it is too late.
