Gideon Sa'ar, Israel's Minister for Foreign Affairs, holds up an image of Israeli captive Evyatar David while speaking at a United Nations Security Council meeting Tuesday.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
As Tamar Eshet watched the frail and emaciated figure in the video, recorded in a tunnel somewhere in the Gaza Strip, she struggled to comprehend that the man was her cousin, Evyatar David.
“We knew that he’s not getting a lot of food and we knew he’s in a tunnel in a bad condition, but I don’t think anyone could imagine something like that, such cruelty, such inhumanity,” she said in an interview with The Globe and Mail from her home in Israel.
Several thousand kilometres away in New York, the United Nations Security Council heard from Mr. David’s brother Ilay, who pleaded with the international community to put pressure on Hamas to release Evyatar, who is among 20 living hostages still being held by the militant group. Hamas is also believed to be holding the remains of another 30 hostages.
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At the session, called by Israel to discuss the crisis, Ilay said that silence was “complicity.”
“I urge you, do not let them die,” Ilay said by video link. “We don’t have time. Do not let them spend another minute in darkness, suffering beyond imagination, while we do our part, demanding from the Israeli government to do everything to save the hostages.”
The hostages’ families faced fresh anguish over the weekend as Hamas released two propaganda videos of their loved ones, who have been held since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, capturing 251 hostages and killing about 1,200 people.
In one video, Evyatar is shown standing in a tunnel and saying that he hasn’t eaten in days and there’s no food. It shows him digging his own grave. Another video shows Rom Braslavski, who appears to be in physical pain and says he is on the “verge of death.” The videos drew international condemnation.
Ilay told UN delegates Tuesday that his brother was a “living skeleton” and that he and his mother could not bring themselves to watch the video, believing if they did, they “would be unable to function.” He added that his father and sister felt that they had to watch it and that the “images haunt them.”
Miroslav Jenca, assistant secretary-general for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas for the UN Department of Political Affairs, said at the UN session that the videos were “an affront to humanity itself” and reiterated calls for the hostages’ unconditional release.
Addressing Ilay directly, he said: “Please know that we at the United Nations recognize the profound pain and hardship endured by the families and loved ones of those who remain in captivity.”
Mr. Jenca said that since the end of May, more than 1,200 Palestinians have been killed and more than 8,100 injured while seeking food, in addition to the 60,000 who have died since the conflict began.
“The deaths and injuries continue to mount day by day, with no end in sight to the suffering,” he said in New York. “Israel continues to severely restrict humanitarian assistance entering Gaza and the aid that is permitted to enter is grossly inadequate.”
Israel until recently prevented aid from the UN and other organizations from reaching Gaza, maintaining that Hamas was stealing the supplies. Instead it supported a private American organization, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has set up four distribution sites and has been widely criticized by humanitarian organizations for weaponizing aid.
After mounting pressure from aid organizations and its Western allies over the growing hunger crisis in Gaza, the Israeli government appears to have tried to make some concessions by announcing pauses in fighting in some areas, allowing some trucks to resume carrying aid into Gaza, and permitting food and supplies to be dropped from airplanes.
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On Tuesday, COGAT, Israel’s agency responsible for co-ordinating humanitarian aid, said in a post on X that Israel would allow the “gradual and controlled renewal of the entry of goods through the private sector in Gaza.” It said local merchants were approved, subject to certain criteria and security.
The video of Evyatar shows a large arm, presumably belonging to a Hamas militant, giving him a can of beans. Ms. Eshet said it was evidence that his captors were eating well while the hostages were being starved.
“I think the main problem is Hamas taking the food for themselves, starving both hostages and their own people, and using both the hostages and the Gaza people for their propaganda,” she said.
She added: “I think they try to show that they are the strong ones by humiliating Evyatar and by abusing him. And they basically showed pretty much only how heartless they are.”
Hamas has denied starving the Israeli hostages and said they endure the same hunger as Palestinians. The militant group also said it would respond to Red Cross requests to deliver food to them, subject to aid deliveries resuming in a “regular and permanent manner.”
Mr. Jenca called the latest reports of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s possible decision to expand Israel’s military operations throughout the entirety of Gaza “deeply alarming,” saying it would risk “catastrophic consequences for millions of Palestinians and could further endanger the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza.”
With a report from Associated Press