The family of Israeli hostage Evyatar David, held by Hamas in Gaza since their bloody attack in Israel on 7 October 2023, has accused the group of deliberately starving him as part of a “propaganda campaign”.
The family statement came after Hamas released a video showing an emaciated Mr David in a narrow concrete tunnel.
“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 statement said.
The hostage’s family also urged the Israeli government and the world community to do “everything possible to save Evyatar”.
Hamas released its second video in two days of Mr David over the weekend. In it, Mr David, who is very thin, is shown digging a hole, which, he says in the video, is for his own grave.
Mr David is heard saying: “I haven’t eaten for days… I barely got drinking water.”
“They are on the absolute brink of death,” David’s brother, Ilay, said at a rally in support of the hostages in Tel Aviv on Saturday, where thousands gathered holding posters of those in captivity and chanted for their immediate release.
“In the current unimaginable condition, they may have only days left to live.”
Israel’s minister of foreign affairs Gideon Sa’ar said the “world cannot remain silent in the face of the difficult images that are the result of deliberate sadistic abuse of the hostages, which also includes starvation”.
Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has told families of hostages that he is working with the Israeli government on a plan that would effectively end the war in Gaza.
Mr Trump has made ending the conflict a major priority of his administration, though negotiations have faltered. Mr Witkoff is visiting Israel as its government faces mounting pressure over the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the enclave.
In a recording of the meeting, reviewed by Reuters, Mr Witkoff is heard saying: “We have a very, very good plan that we’re working on collectively with the Israeli government, with Prime Minister Netanyahu … for the reconstruction of Gaza. That effectively means the end of the war.”
Mr Witkoff also said that Hamas was prepared to disarm in order to end the war, although the group has repeatedly said it will not lay down its weapons.
In response, Hamas, which has dominated Gaza since 2007, said it would not relinquish “armed resistance” unless an “independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital” was established.
