Hamas sparked massive outrage over the weekend by releasing a hostage video showing an emaciated, starving Israeli hostage in a gloomy tunnel, who was seemingly digging his own grave.
The video featured Evyatar David, an Israeli man who was taken hostage at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7, 2023.
Evyatar David was kidnapped from the Nova Festival on Oct. 7th.
He is being starved to death by Hamas, who released these horrific photos of him over 5 hours ago.
Not a single Western media outlet has reported it.
Starvation doesn’t interest them unless they can blame Jews. pic.twitter.com/VxE49xAZFz
— Yehuda Teitelbaum (@chalavyishmael) August 1, 2025
“It show[ed] him writing on a calendar pinned to the cement tunnel wall on which he records what he eats daily,” according to The Wall Street Journal. “Most days are either beans, lentils, or no food at all.”
The haunting video also showed David digging a grave.
“This is the grave I may be buried in,” he said as he was digging. “Time is running out.”
WARNING: The following videos contain imagery that may disturb some readers.
How psychopathic is Hamas?
It forced starving hostage Evyatar David to DIG HIS OWN GRAVE for the cameras. pic.twitter.com/iMa404St4s
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) August 2, 2025
Should Hamas be destroyed?
David’s family was horrified by the video.
“We are forced to witness our beloved son and brother, Evyatar David, deliberately and cynically starved in Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza — a living skeleton, buried alive,” the family said in a statement reported by the BBC.
The family also urged the Israeli government and the world to do “everything possible to save Evyatar.”
Speaking Saturday night at a hostage rally in Tel Aviv, David’s brother, Ilay David, labeled the video of his brother “propaganda.”
“Hamas is using Evyatar in one of the most horrific and calculated campaigns of cruelty imaginable — a live hunger experiment,” he said, per the Wall Street Hournal. “They are starving him deliberately, systematically, using his agonizing suffering as a twisted tool for their depraved propaganda.”
Ilay David also called on the Israeli and U.S. governments to “do everything in your power, by any means necessary” to get his brother released.
Following the release of the horrific propaganda video showing a starved Evyatar David, his brother Ilay spoke out this evening:
“They are on the absolute brink of death…Hamas is using Evyatar in one of the most horrific and calculated campaigns of cruelty imaginable—a live… pic.twitter.com/SyR6UYOaye
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) August 2, 2025
The video showing Evyatar David was published a day after the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group that also operates in Gaza and is closely allied with Hamas, released its own video showing another emaciated hostage, Rom Braslavski.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was outraged by both videos.
“The cruelty of Hamas has no boundaries,” he said in a statement published to X. “While the State of Israel is allowing the entry of humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, the terrorists of Hamas are deliberately starving our hostages and document them in a cynical and evil manner.”
Today, Palestinian Islamic Jihad released footage of Rom Braslavski.
Rom was kidnapped from the Nova music festival and has been held hostage in Gaza for close to 700 days.
Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, and Mark Carney would like to give Rom’s captors their own country. pic.twitter.com/4tBYtGuT3C
— Shabbos Kestenbaum (@ShabbosK) July 31, 2025
President Donald Trump’s envoy to the Middle East and elsewhere, Steve Witkoff, has meanwhile used the “propaganda” videos to issue an important reminder to Hamas.
“We know who is alive, and someone will be to blame if they don’t come out alive,” he said as he met with hostage families on Saturday, according to NBC News.
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