Families of hostages protest in Tel Aviv on 2 August 2025, demanding the immediate release of their loved ones still held in Hamas captivity in Gaza. [AP Photo/Ariel Schalit]
( The Post News)- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for urgent humanitarian access through the Red Cross to offer food and aid to hostages in Gaza after a disturbing video surfaced online showing two Israeli captives in a severely emaciated state.
The videos showed visibly weakened and malnourished Evyatar David and Rom Braslavsk. In the footage, 24-year-old David says he had not eaten in days and, near the end, begins digging his “own grave”.
Meanwhile, David’s family accused Hamas of deliberately starving him as part of a propaganda campaign to ‘pressure Israel’. They described him as a “living skeleton, buried alive” in Hamas’s tunnels.
Since the release of the video, Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israeli officials have contacted the Red Cross to intervene and provide humanitarian relief to the hostages.
In response, Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said it would permit Red Cross access to the hostages but only if “humanitarian corridors” are opened across Gaza to allow broader aid delivery. The group denied intentionally starving the hostages, but admitted they did not receive “special food privileges” amid the wider humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
It is believed that 22 Israeli hostages remain in Gaza. Their families have renewed public calls for immediate international action, staging protests in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square.
Please share thoughts contact Lukhona via email: journalist-lukhona@thepostnews.net
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