The hostage whose grave Hamas made him dig is among those released alive

BarcelonaLast August, when the world was crying out against the images Increasingly frequent cases of malnourished children in Gaza Due to Israel's almost complete blockade of food and medicine, Hamas released a video showing a hostage, Evyatar David, also visibly malnourished. The images showed the 24-year-old man somewhere underground, and He claimed he was digging his own grave. In just three days, the Islamist group published three videos showing very thin Israeli hostages to denounce the hunger that was ravaging – and continues to ravage – the entire Gaza Strip, which brought tens of thousands of people to the streets of Tel Aviv. This Monday, David was one of the twenty hostages released alive.

The young man was able to reunite with Guy Gilboa-Dalal, a childhood friend with whom he spent much of his captivity in Gaza, in conditions that their families have described as "inhumane," according to the newspaper Times of IsraelChannel 12 reported that the kidnappers had separated the two boys about two months ago, after they had shared a space since their abduction on October 7, 2023, at the Nova music festival. Two other friends of theirs were killed in the Hamas attack.

The two young men had previously appeared in a Hamas propaganda video, in which they were seen being forced to watch a release ceremony for other captives in February 2025. Six months later, David was once again a target of the Islamists' propaganda. Gilboa-Dalal's father told the public broadcaster Kan that his son had been "force-fed" for the past month, following the release of the video featuring his friend.

In a statement released by the Hostage Families Forum, the family of Evyatar David thanks the Israeli security forces and army, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, and US President Donald Trump for their efforts to free the hostages. "Even in our incomprehensible joy, our hearts go out to the families who have lost what they loved most," the statement reads.

This Monday, Israeli media reported repeated images of the hostages being reunited with their families. This also included accusations of inhumane treatment by the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad kidnappers. Several hostages have told their families that they were isolated and with virtually no outside information during their captivity, and some are showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress. "He occasionally says a few things. He suffered very severe torture in the first few months, when they defined him as a soldier," the mother of 22-year-old Matan Angrest explained on N12. "He spent a lot of time in the tunnels, experiencing IDF [Israel Defense Forces] bombing, planes passing over the tunnel, walls falling near them—very complex situations," she said, summing up what it has been like to live in Gaza these past two years.

According to Kan radio, most of the hostages were transferred to tunnels from different parts of the Strip after a rescue operation by the Israeli army in June 2024, and had limited media exposure.