TNA Staff
The New Arab / August 2, 2025
Hamas’ military wing released a video of an Israeli captive looking notably thinner amid the ongoing siege, triggering calls for an immediate ceasefire deal.
Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, released a video on Friday of an Israeli captive showing signs of severe weight loss and malnutrition, raising further alarm over the ongoing starvation and siege in Gaza.
The caption to the video, posted on Telegram, reads that the captive is “waiting to be released in a prisoner swap”.
The video shows the captive, who was later identified as Israeli soldier Evyatar David, looking markedly thin and sitting on bed in a cramped room. His arms show signs of drastic weight loss, and his ribs are also protruding, in a scene which has become increasingly common in Gaza as Israel obstructs aid.
The clip went on to show earlier footage of the captive being transported in a vehicle during a previous temporary ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement which took place in January.
The captions in the video are written in Arabic, English and Hebrew, and go on to state “the occupation government has decided to starve them … they eat what we eat, they drink what we drink”.
It also includes several clips of emaciated Palestinian children and babies, with many of them looking skeletal due to their bones sticking out against their skin.
Following the publication of the video, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid hit out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in a statement on X, saying: “Every member of the government should watch Evitar’s video today before going to sleep and try to fall asleep while thinking of him trying to stay alive in the tunnel”.
Israel’s official broadcasting authority later quoted Galia David, the mother of the captive as saying: “I am devastated, but I have one certainty, my son is alive. Evyatar is alive”, adding that this was the first time she has been able to watch a recording of him.
According to Hebrew news site Yedioth Ahronoth, several of the family members of the captives have demanded that Netanyahu’s government agree on a ceasefire deal immediately to secure the freedom of those held in Gaza.
Israeli figures state there are 50 captives now left in Gaza, 20 of them alive. At the same time, Israel is holding some 10,800 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, many of them arbitrarily arrested without charge or trial. Children are also among those held in Israeli prisons, many of them in poor conditions and with no access to lawyers or regular family visits.
Hamas said on Thursday that they are ready to engage in a new round of ceasefire negotiations, urging that the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel comes to an end and emergency aid is allowed into Gaza unimpeded.
In a statement published on its official Telegram channel, the group said that starvation in Gaza had now reached “unprecedented levels” and poses a significant threat to the lives of over 2 million Palestinians.
The latest developments come as Ted Chaiban, the UNICEF deputy director, made damning comments following a recent visit to Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
“Over 18,000 children have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war. That’s an average of 28 children a day, the size of a classroom, gone. Children have lost loved ones, they are hungry and scared, and they are traumatised,” he said.
He noted that more than 320,000 young children are at risk of acute malnutrition currently in Gaza.
“I should also say that I visited the West Bank. There, too, children are under threat. So far this year, 39 Palestinian children have been killed. I visited a Bedouin community east of Ramallah, which was forcibly displaced due to violence,” he continued.
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Family condemns Hamas video showing emaciated Israeli hostage inside Gaza
Emily Rose
Reuters / August 3, 2025
Relatives of Evyatar David say he is being deliberately starved as he is shown digging a hole that the hostage says he fears will be his own grave.
Jerusalem – 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.
Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire in the Gaza war and a deal for the release of half the hostages ended last week in deadlock.
Mr Witkoff, who arrived in Israel with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government facing a global outcry over the devastation in Gaza and the starvation growing among its 2.2 million people, met the prime minister on Thursday.
Afterwards, a senior Israeli official said an understanding between Israel and Washington was emerging that there was a need to move from a plan to release some of the hostages to a plan to release all the hostages, disarm Hamas and demilitarise the Gaza Strip, echoing Israel’s key demands for ending the war.
On Tuesday, Qatar and Egypt, who are mediating ceasefire efforts, endorsed a declaration by France and Saudi Arabia outlining steps toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As part of it, they said Hamas must hand over its arms to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
The crisis in Gaza has also prompted a string of Western powers to announce they may recognise a Palestinian state.
On Friday, Mr Witkoff visited a US-backed aid operation in southern Gaza, which the United Nations has partly blamed for deadly conditions in the enclave, saying he sought to get food and other aid to people there.
Dozens have died of malnutrition in recent weeks after Israel cut off all supplies to the enclave for nearly three months from March to May, according to Gaza’s health ministry. It said on Saturday that it had recorded seven more fatalities, including a child, since Friday.
Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it is taking steps for more aid to reach its population, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, airdrops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys.
UN agencies have said that airdrops of food are insufficient and that Israel must let in far more aid by land and quickly ease access to it.
The Gaza war began when Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in an attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023. Israel’s offensive has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive.
Emily Rose – correspondent at Reuters Jerusalem
