JERUSALEM — Ofir Braslavski watched as his emaciated son, Rom, writhed in anguish on a dirty mattress somewhere inside the Gaza Strip, in video footage released by Palestinian militants in recent days showing the agony of Israeli hostages.
“You see your child dying before your eyes, and you can’t do anything,” he told The Associated Press on Monday from his home. “It drives you crazy, it’s unbearable.”
New images of two skeletal hostages have horrified Israelis and added pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire with Hamas, even as his government considers another expansion of the war, which has already destroyed much of Gaza and pushed it toward famine.
In the video released by the Islamic Jihad militant group, Rom Braslavski says injuries in his foot prevent him from being able to stand. In another video, released by Hamas, Evyatar David says he is digging his own grave and speaks of days without food.
The Associated Press does not normally publish videos of hostages filmed under duress, but is publishing brief excerpts after receiving consent from their families.
The videos led tens of thousands of Israelis to take to the streets on Saturday night and demand a ceasefire deal, in one of the largest turnouts for the weekly protests in recent months.
‘His eyes are turned off’
Braslavski said Rom looks much worse than he did in a video released four months ago.
“There, he also looks terrible, but he had this hope in his eyes where he felt he was still going to get out and it would be OK,” Braslavski said. “Now, in the last video, he looks completely turned off, it’s as if he’s waiting for death. His eyes are turned off, he probably doesn’t want to endure this suffering anymore.”
Braslavski said his son, who was working as a security guard at a music festival in southern Israel during the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack that triggered the war, is usually a strong, happy-go-lucky kid. The video released last week, in which his son sobs and begs for his life, is the first time he’s seen his son cry.
Netanyahu said Monday that he will convene the Cabinet this week to discuss how Israel can meet the three goals he has set for the war: defeating Hamas, returning the hostages and ensuring Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.
But his plans to potentially increase military operations are meeting staunch opposition from within Israel, including letters of protest from leading security leaders and cultural figures.
The footage of the Israeli hostages has stirred condemnation. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “very shocked” by the videos and “this unacceptable violation of human dignity,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.
Warnings of famine in Gaza
The videos were released as international experts say a “worst-case scenario of famine” is unfolding in the coastal territory, where Israel’s offensive has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and made it nearly impossible to safely deliver food and other humanitarian aid. Images of starving Palestinians have drawn international condemnation of Israel’s conduct.
Families of the hostages fear that the lack of food threatens the remaining hostages, too. Fewer than half of the 50 remaining hostages are believed to be alive, the rest either killed during the October 2023 attack or while in captivity.
Netanyahu said he was shocked by the images of the two hostages and met with the Red Cross to ask that it bring hostages food and medicine — access that the organization says has never been granted by Hamas.
“When I see these, I understand exactly what Hamas wants,” Netanyahu said on Sunday. “They do not want a deal. They want to break us using these videos of horror.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was “appalled by the harrowing videos” and called for access to the hostages.
Hamas said it is ready to respond “positively” to Red Cross requests to deliver food to hostages, if humanitarian corridors for aid deliveries are opened in a “regular and permanent manner” in Gaza. It denied starving the hostages, saying they suffer from the same hunger as ordinary Palestinians.
Braslavski said that in the video of his son, the captors appear to be well-fed. “This hunger is on purpose, you can see that,” he said. “It’s not because we’re not letting aid go in.”
Israel has requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the hostages, which will take place on Tuesday. Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he will travel to New York for the meeting.
More starvation deaths
Israel did not allow any food, medicine or other goods to enter Gaza from early March until mid-May, when it eased its blockade on the territory of some 2 million Palestinians.
The United Nations says nearly 1,400 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid since then, mostly by Israeli forces as crowds head toward aid sites run by an Israeli-backed American contractor. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Monday that five more Palestinian adults died of malnutrition-related causes in the past 24 hours. A total of 87 adults have died of malnutrition-related issues since the ministry started counting such deaths in late June, it said.
Ninety-three children have died of malnutrition-related causes since the war in Gaza began, the ministry said. Israel’s government has denied that people are starving to death in Gaza.
About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the Hamas attack on southern Israel that sparked the war, and another 251 were abducted. Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 60,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count but says women and children make up over half the dead, is part of the Hamas government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and other independent experts view its figures as the most reliable casualty count. Israel has disputed the figures but hasn’t provided its own.
