The final moments of a drawn-out war between Hamas and Israel will not be marked by triumphant parades.
This conflict has dragged the Israeli people into a living nightmare – from the killing of 1,200 civilians and soldiers on October 7, 2023, to the captivity of hundreds of citizens to the anguish of families still longing to touch loved ones held by a terrorist organization without restraint. That is without even counting the wounded on all sides.
Hamas’s psychological warfare
Slowly leaked images and videos – Hamas’s tools for shock and psychological leverage – have surfaced again. In the latest, Evyatar David is shown digging what appears to be his own grave with a shovel. He says he has gone three days without food. After that admission, Hamas hands him a single can of lentils – supposed to last two days.
His family has called him “a living skeleton buried alive.” His “crime” was attending the Supernova music festival on October 7.
The clip is the second video Hamas has released of David; the first appeared in February during the last ceasefire deal.
Arriving just a day after a video showing Rom Braslavski’s gaunt and despairing face, the new footage has David saying: “Today is July 27 at 12 o’clock. I don’t know what I’m going to eat. I haven’t eaten for a few days in a row.” He adds: “I am in a very, very difficult situation, for a long time, for a few months,” describing the shortage of food and water, and that his captors “give what they can.”
Someone off camera [with a healthy, muscular forearm] hands him a can, and David says, “This can is for two days; this whole can is for two days so that I don’t die.”
He then addresses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly: “I have been completely abandoned by you, my prime minister, who is supposed to worry about me and all the prisoners.”
The video ends with David describing himself digging what he fears is his own grave in a tunnel, saying he is “weaker and weaker by the day” and “heading toward death.”
Hamas has refined psychological warfare into a weapon meant to push hostage families in Israel and abroad to pressure Netanyahu’s government into accepting a ceasefire.
Cornered in Gaza
The group remains cornered in northern Gaza, operating from the remnants of a tunnel network built over more than a decade.
Over the weekend, the IDF defeated a battalion in Beit Hanun and released images of three terrorists surrendering to the Givati Brigade.
Widely shared images portraying famine have generated sympathy and diplomatic backlash against Israel, shifting focus away from the war’s origins.
While some in northern Gaza lack the same access to food as those in the south, many residents say Hamas steals and resells aid, and they place greater blame on Hamas than on Israel.
The terror group knows it is nearing the endgame. Every move now is aimed at swaying public opinion and political action.
Its latest hostage video is the kind of leverage Hamas is counting on.
The footage portrays an organization that has lost all restraint, using grotesque imagery to sway Israeli opinion.
Meanwhile, Hamas continues to demand a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. It has won support from several nations preparing to push for recognition of Palestinian statehood in September.
Where is the UN?
What the world should see is an Israeli hostage reduced to a skeletal frame, in physical and emotional ruin – the very reason Israel launched its war on October 8.
Where are the United Nations and other aid groups? Why are you not condemning Hamas? Where are the countries accusing Israel of starving Gazans? Look into the eyes of Evyatar David, Rom Braslavski, and every hostage taken by Hamas, and understand that their suffering is part of a narrative crafted by Hamas leaders themselves.
They do not care for their own people, and even less for the hostages they hold.
The group has declared it will not disarm – a position contradicting US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s assessment of recent events. Hamas also criticized Witkoff for visiting Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid sites, ignoring US President Donald Trump’s directive to his envoy and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to see conditions firsthand.
Israel will continue closing in on Hamas, though the fate of remaining hostages is uncertain. One thing is clear: The world’s double standard cannot be ignored.
Human life – be it Jewish, Israeli, Christian, Muslim, or other – is sacrosanct.
But not if you are a terrorist.
The writer is the president and CEO of The Media Line news agency and founder of the Press and Policy Student Program, the Mideast Press Club, and Women’s Empowerment Program. She can be reached at ffriedson@themedialine.org.