Israeli hostage family condemns 'vile' Hamas video propaganda
The David family was reacting after Hamas's armed wing released a video of 24-year-old Evyatar David, looking emaciated and weak. Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods and aid into Gaza have led to severe shortages of food and other essentials.
This photo taken on a wall shows the portrait of the hostage Evyatar David held in the Gaza Strip since the Oct 7, 2023 attack by Hamas militants, set up on a square outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, on Jan 21, 2025. The armed wing of Palestinian militant group Hamas released a minute-long video on Aug 1, 2025 of an Israeli hostage, that AFP and Israeli media identified as Evyatar David, looking weak and malnourished, inside a narrow concrete tunnel. (Photo: AFP)
JERUSALEM: The family of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza for almost 22 months accused Hamas on Saturday (Aug 2) of tormenting him with hunger as part of a propaganda campaign.
The David family was reacting after Hamas's armed wing released a video of 24-year-old Evyatar David, looking emaciated and weak in a narrow concrete tunnel, for the second night in a row.
"Hamas is using our son as a live experiment in a vile hunger campaign. The deliberate starvation of our son as part of a propaganda campaign is one of the most horrifying acts the world has seen," the family said in a statement.
David was abducted during the Hamas attack that sparked the Gaza war along with his friend Gal Gilboa-Dalal. Both had been attending the Nova music festival in southern Israel.
They were among 44 festival-goers seized. Palestinian militants killed 370.
In late February, Hamas released a video showing David and Gilboa-Dalal being held inside a vehicle and forced to watch a hostage release ceremony a short distance away.
Of the 251 hostages taken during the Hamas attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods and aid into Gaza have led to severe shortages of food and other essentials, stoking international demands for a ceasefire.
Hamas has included this issue in their hostage videos, warning that the hostages are going hungry alongside their captors and that time is running out for a ceasefire.
In their statement, the David family demanded that the aid that is now getting into Gaza thanks to renewed UN convoys and foreign airdrops must also reach their son.
"We call upon the government of Israel, the people of Israel, nations of the world and the president of the United States to do everything possible to save Evyatar from death and ensure, by any means necessary, that he urgently receives food and medical care," they said.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Saturday also denounced as "despicable" videos of Israeli hostages held in Gaza posted by Hamas's armed wing and by another Palestinian Islamist group.
"Despicable, unbearable images of the Israeli hostages held for 666 days in Gaza by Hamas," Barrot wrote in a post on X.
"They must be freed, without conditions," he added. "Hamas must be disarmed and excluded from ruling Gaza."
He also called for humanitarian aid to be supplied to the people of Gaza in massive quantities.
The release of the videos has sparked outrage in Israel.
Israel's top general, army chief of staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, warned on Saturday there would be no respite in fighting in Gaza if negotiations fail to quickly secure the release of hostages.
