Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reacted strongly to a disturbing new Hamas propaganda video showing 24-year-old Israeli hostage Evyatar David severely emaciated and forced to dig what he said was his own grave.
“The cruelty of Hamas has no boundaries,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “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.”
He continued, “The entire world must take a stand in a clear message against the criminal Nazi abuse perpetrated by the Hamas terror organization.”
According to the prime minister’s office, Netanyahu spoke extensively with the families of Evyatar David and another hostage, Rom Braslavski, who also appeared in a similar condition recently.
Netanyahu “expressed profound shock over the materials distributed by the terror organizations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.” He assured the families that “the efforts to return all our hostages are ongoing, and will continue constantly and relentlessly.”
The prime minister also conveyed a message on behalf of his wife: “He conveyed, in his wife Sara’s name, a great embrace to the families, telling them that she is heartbroken over the unbearable videos.”
One of the newly released videos shows a shirtless Evyatar David crossing off dates on a calendar and digging a grave in a tunnel barely as tall as himself.
In a statement through the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters, David’s family said they were devastated: “We were forced to watch our beloved son and brother deliberately and cynically starved in Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza – a living skeleton, buried alive.”
“The deliberate starvation of our son as part of a propaganda campaign is one of the most horrifying acts the world has seen,” they added.
David’s brother, Ilay, addressed a massive rally at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv over the weekend.
“They are on the absolute brink of death. In their current, unimaginable condition, they may have only days left to live,” Ilay told the crowd.
“Hamas is using Evyatar in one of the most horrific and calculated campaigns of cruelty imaginable. A live hunger experiment. They are starving him deliberately, systematically, using his agonizing suffering as a twisted tool for depraved propaganda.”
He went further, calling it a stain on global humanity: “This is not just a violation of international law. It is a brutal, barbaric assault on every shred of basic human decency. It’s an act so vile it scars the very soul of humanity.”
The U.S. and Israel had withdrawn their negotiators from Doha, Qatar, two weeks ago, after talks with Hamas on a ceasefire and hostage release stalled.
On Friday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff visited Netanyahu in Israel before spending several hours inside Gaza.
Witkoff said they were “level-setting the facts on the ground, assessing conditions,” and meeting with humanitarian agencies including the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
The purpose of the visit, he said, was to give former President Donald Trump “a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza.”
Chapin Fay, spokesperson for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, said the visit showed Trump understood what was at stake. “Feeding civilians, not Hamas, must be the priority,” he stated.
(Fox News)
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