TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas released a one-minute video on Friday, showing an Israeli hostage held in Gaza looking weak and malnourished inside a narrow concrete tunnel.
According to Arab News, the footage from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades features a thin, bearded man identified by Israeli media as Evyatar David. He was captured during the October 7, 2023, attack.
The video shows him sitting on a bed in a cramped room, his bones visibly protruding due to lack of nutrition. The video’s authenticity has not been independently confirmed.
David, who was 24 at the time of his abduction, was kidnapped during the same attack along with his friend, Gal Gilboa-Dalal. Both had been attending the Nova music festival in southern Israel.
They were among 44 festival-goers taken hostage. Palestinian militants were accused of killing 370 people in the assault, although former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant acknowledged in a February interview that Israeli forces also caused some of the fatalities on that day.
In a separate video released in late February, David and Gilboa-Dalal appeared inside a vehicle, watching a nearby hostage release ceremony.
Out of the 251 hostages taken during the Hamas-led attack, 49 remain in Gaza. The Israeli military claims 27 of them have died.
Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid and food to Gaza has caused severe shortages, contributing to famine conditions. This has led to growing international pressure for a ceasefire.
Following the release of the video, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
“Every member of the government should watch Evyatar (David)’s video tonight before going to sleep, and then try to fall asleep while thinking about Evyatar fighting to stay alive inside the tunnel,” Lapid wrote on X.
David’s mother, Galia David, expressed hope in a statement aired by the public broadcaster KAN and reported by Anadolu.
“I’m devastated, but I have one certainty: my son is alive, Evyatar is alive,” she said.
According to Yedioth Ahronoth, families of both living and deceased hostages are urging the Netanyahu government to swiftly agree to a hostage exchange, in order to end their loved ones’ suffering.
On February 23, the Qassam Brigades released another video showing two captives in a Hamas vehicle. They appeared shocked as they witnessed a hostage release nearby. David, looking frail, was among them.
In that video, the captives appealed to Netanyahu to maintain the ceasefire and push forward with the prisoner exchange so they could return home.
Aljazeera, citing the Times of Israel, reported that hundreds of people protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday to pressure the government into securing a deal for the remaining hostages.
The report noted that relatives of the hostages had set up a symbolic barbed wire camp to highlight the captives’ suffering. It followed the release of new videos of Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski.
“We saw the difficult videos of Rom and Evyatar from captivity,” said Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker.
“Jews are becoming skin and bones because of political survival,” she said, referring to accusations that Netanyahu is prolonging the war to remain in power.
“If we don’t free everyone now, they will not survive for much longer.”
On Saturday, August 2, medical sources reported the deaths of three more Palestinian children and one adult from starvation and malnutrition. This raised the famine-related death toll in Gaza to 164, including 93 children.
The most recent death was that of 17-year-old Atef Abu Khater. He died from malnutrition at al-Shifa Hospital. His father told the media earlier this week that Atef, who had been healthy before the war, was in intensive care and had stopped responding to treatment.
On July 23, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported a surge in deaths from malnutrition in Gaza, including 21 infant deaths recorded since January.
According to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, over 10 percent of Gaza’s population is suffering from acute malnutrition. More than 20 percent of tested pregnant and breastfeeding mothers also showed severe malnutrition, often reaching critical levels.
He warned that the famine is worsening, as aid shipments remain blocked and access continues to be restricted.
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