Tel Aviv – When Hamas launched a video of Evyatar David, he seemed so fragile and emaciated that his father did not recognize his voice, said the brother of the Israeli hostage on Monday.
David, now 24 years old, was celebrating at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, when the militants kidnapped him and another 250 throughout the country during his terrorist attack that saw 1,200 dead.
Hamas caused more international protests this weekend when he published images of a remarkably fragile David along with the Hungry Palestinians, suffering chronic food shortage under Israel’s military operation and intensified blockade, in what his family sees as an attempt to use it as a propaganda tool.
“Break my parents’ hearts,” his older brother, Ilay David, 28, said on Monday, NBC News in Tel Aviv about Gaul and Avishay David.
He said he can’t see the video, but his family has compared his brother’s physical condition with the Holocaust images. “It seems that the images we all know about the story class 80 years ago,” said Ilay David, who before the attack worked as a youth counselor, but is now full -time focused on taking his brother home.
The hostages were “Staying in a situation close to death, “said Ilay David, adding that his brother” can barely speak “and that he was so weak that his father could not recognize his voice.
He added that his brother “needs medical attention at this time, and if I can’t talk about him, advocate him, he may not survive.”
The generalized hunger that is now developed in Gaza has killed at least 170 people, 90 of them children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. According to the last Israeli account, there are about 20 hostages that are still alive after almost three years in captivity.
Among them is David, whom his brother described as a “brilliant guitarist” with the “friendliest soul I know.” Ilay David added. “I love him and he is my best friend.”
Ilay David spoke after President Donald Trump’s envoy in the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, met with the families of the hostages on Saturday and emphasized the administration’s commitment to return them to those who are still within Gaza.
Benjamin Netanyahu also spoke “in long” with David’s family on Saturday night, expressing “deep shock” in the recordings published by Hamas, said the office of the Israeli prime minister in a statement. He blamed Hamas for the hostages and palestinians deliberately hungry “by” avoiding help. “
Almost 61,000 people have been killed since the beginning of the Israel military campaign, according to Palestinian health officials. The recent international protest on generalized malnutrition in the enclave has led Israel to stop the fight and let it help it, but help agencies say it is not enough.
David’s brother blamed the terrorist group for using “he cynically in his own star campaign” and called him the “peak of cruelty.”
Ilay David said they are “worse than Al Qaeda” and “worse than ISIS”, two of the main terrorist groups that have brought misery to the Middle East in recent decades.
David “still has faith, he still has hope, that is what keeps him safe,” said his brother. “When I return, not if you return, let’s take care of it, support it and he will be bigger than before.”
Matt Bradley reported from Tel Aviv and Alexander Smith from London.
