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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to a disturbing new Hamas propaganda video showing 24-year-old Israeli hostage Evyatar David severely emaciated and digging what he said was his own grave.
“The cruelty of Hamas has no boundaries,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “While the State of Israel is allowing the entry of humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, the terrorists of Hamas are deliberately starving our hostages and document them in a cynical and evil manner.”
“The entire world must take a stand in a clear message against the criminal Nazi abuse perpetrated by the Hamas terror organization,” Netanyahu added.
The office of the Israeli prime minister said Saturday that Netanyahu had spoken “at length” with the families of David and another hostage, Rom Braslavski, who was recently seen in similar condition. Netanyahu “expressed profound shock over the materials distributed by the terror organizations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.” According to his office, the prime minister told the families “that the efforts to return all our hostages are ongoing, and will continue constantly and relentlessly.”
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Evyatar David’s brother spoke in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on Aug. 2, 2025. (Getty Images)
His office said Netanyahu also “conveyed, in his wife Sara’s name, a great embrace to the families, telling them that she is heartbroken over the unbearable videos.”
In one video released by the terror group and made public Friday, a shirtless David is seen crossing off dates on a calendar and digging the grave in a tunnel barely as tall as he is.
In a statement released through the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters, David’s family said they were forced to watch their beloved son and brother “deliberately and cynically starved in Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza – a living skeleton, buried alive.”
“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.
David’s brother, Ilay, spoke at a massive rally demanding a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Tel Aviv over the weekend.
Families of hostages protest at the plaza known as the Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Aug. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
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“They are on the absolute brink of death. In their current, unimaginable condition, they may have only days left to live,” Ilay told the crowd in Hostages Square. “Hamas is using Evyatar in one of the most horrific and calculated campaigns of cruelty imaginable. A live hunger experiment. They are starving him deliberately, systematically, using his agonizing suffering as a twisted tool for depraved propaganda.”
“This is not just a violation of international law,” he said. “It is a brutal, barbaric assault on every shred of basic human decency. It’s an act so vile it scars the very soul of humanity.”
The U.S. and Israel pulled their negotiators from Doha, Qatar, two weeks ago as ceasefire and hostage-release talks with Hamas reached a standstill.
On Friday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff met with Netayahu in Israel before spending several hours in Gaza inspecting food distribution centers amid hunger concerns.
Families of hostages gather in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Aug. 2, 2025. (ORI AVIRAM/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
Witkoff said they spent over five hours inside Gaza – “level-setting the facts on the ground, assessing conditions,” and meeting with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and other agencies.
He said the purpose of the visit was to give President Donald Trump “a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza.”
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Chapin Fay, a spokesperson for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, said the visit reflected Trump’s understanding of the stakes and that “feeding civilians, not Hamas, must be the priority.”
Fox News’ Yael Kuriel and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
