The family of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza for almost 22 months accused Hamas on Saturday of tormenting him with hunger as part of a propaganda campaign.
The David family was reacting after Hamas’s armed wing released a video of 24-year-old Evyatar David, looking emaciated and weak in a narrow concrete tunnel, for the second night in a row.
“Hamas is using our son as a live experiment in a vile hunger campaign. 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 in a statement.
David was abducted during the Hamas attack that sparked the Gaza war along with his friend Gal Gilboa-Dalal. Both had been attending the Nova music festival in southern Israel.
They were among 44 festival-goers seized. Palestinian militants killed 370.
In late February, Hamas released a video showing David and Gilboa-Dalal being held inside a vehicle and forced to watch a hostage release ceremony a short distance away.
Of the 251 hostages taken during the Hamas attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods and aid into Gaza have led to severe shortages of food and other essentials, stoking international demands for a ceasefire.
Hamas has included this issue in their hostage videos, warning that the hostages are going hungry alongside their captors and that time is running out for a ceasefire.
In their statement, the David family demanded that the aid that is now getting into Gaza thanks to renewed UN convoys and foreign airdrops must also reach their son.
“We call upon the government of Israel, the people of Israel, nations of the world and the president of the United States to do everything possible to save Evyatar from death and ensure, by any means necessary, that he urgently receives food and medical care,” they said.
AFP
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