The Israeli Health Ministry has issued an urgent appeal to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), detailing the extreme abuse, torture, and neglect suffered by hostages held in Gaza since the October 7th massacre. The report follows the recent release of disturbing videos showing abductees Eviatar David and Rom Braslavski — visibly emaciated, broken, and in desperate need of urgent medical care.
A catalogue of human cruelty
The report, based on testimony from 12 released hostages, documents relentless physical and psychological abuse, deliberate starvation, denial of medical care, and prolonged captivity in inhumane underground conditions. Survivors describe being beaten, humiliated, bound for hours until losing feeling in their hands, and subjected to repeated lynchings by local mobs on their way to Gaza. Many were forced to witness the murder of family members and neighbors, deepening the trauma.
Women hostages reported sexual harassment and feared long-term fertility damage due to abuse and malnutrition.
Months underground in suffocating tunnels
Most hostages were kept for months in Hamas’s tunnel network — cramped spaces as small as two square meters, often with up to six people crammed inside, unable to stand. They slept on hard floors without mattresses, surrounded by insects, enduring freezing cold in winter and extreme heat in summer. Makeshift “toilets” consisted of waste pits dug into the ground; showers, if permitted at all, came once every few months, using cold water and shared towels. Clothing was rarely changed — underwear sometimes only twice a year.
