Hamas's armed wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, released another video of Israeli hostage Evyatar David this Saturday, following the footage released the day before in which he appears extremely thin. In the video, David is carrying a shovel and beginning to dig inside a tunnel."I'm digging my own grave," says the 24-year-old.
David is one of the 254 people kidnapped by the Palestinian militia during its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which has served as justification for the Netanyahu government to bomb the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air since then and to establish a blockade of humanitarian aid in the enclave, which has already left 169 dead from starvation, according to sources from the Gaza Ministry of Health, in the hands of Hamas. Of those 254 kidnapped, 50 remain in the enclave, of which it is believed that twenty are still alive, although their condition is unknown.
This is not the first time that Hamas has used hostages as propaganda to attack the Israeli government. “They eat what we eat,” read the video released yesterday, which alternated between images of an emaciated and extremely thin David and those of malnourished children in the Gaza Strip. “Time is running out,” David said in the video released Saturday, a slogan repeated by Hamas as a way of pressuring Israel to reach a ceasefire agreement.
Relatives of the kidnapped have been protesting for months in what is now known as Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, specifically to demand a ceasefire that would bring back the hostages held by Hamas. The latest demonstration, this morning, was called Friday afternoon after seeing David's first video and the one published by Islamic Jihad by Rom Braslavski, also 24."They won't survive much longer; the dead are at immediate risk of disappearing. We cannot endure another minute without bringing them home," reads the statement released by the Forum of Families of Hostages and Missing Persons.
The event was attended by the United States special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who met with the families afterward. The American assured them that the Donald Trump administration has"a plan" to end the war and bring everyone home, although he did not provide details of that plan.
