Hamas releases cruel video showing hostage Evyatar David digging his own grave: 'I'm digging my own grave.'

In a new video released by the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamist group Hamas, Israeli hostage Evyatar David is seen digging his own grave in a narrow tunnel in the Gaza Strip. The footage, laced with a message of despair, reveals the young man's physical deterioration.

"What I'm digging is my own grave," says David, 24, as he uses a shovel to dig through the earth inside a tunnel in the Strip, barely a meter wide. "Time is running out," he adds.

At the end of the video, the young man collapses on the shovel, after asking for a truce that would allow him to return home to his family, after which the Islamist group displays the text: "Only a ceasefire agreement can bring them back alive."

In the images, David is seen writing on a calendar, which he later explains is what he eats every day.

The young man mentions that he alternates between lentils and beans from one day to the next, and in between, he can go between one and three days without eating, according to the video.

Videos from Palestinian militias in Gaza are often scripted, according to other hostages who have left the enclave, who have also described being deprived of food or suffering physical or psychological abuse.

"This is for two days, to keep me alive," David says with a neutral expression in the video, while eating directly from a can of legumes.

Evyatar David was once full of life.Hamas starved him, tortured him, and made him dig his own grave.And the world? Some Pro Palestine supporters still call this “resistance.”But we know the truth: 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗹. pic.twitter.com/YLbIrl07kU

— Israel MyChannel (@IsraelMychannel) August 2, 2025

The young man also addresses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly: "I feel like I've been abandoned. As prime minister of my government, you have to take care of me and the other prisoners."

"I had heard that in Israel the government has to care for prisoners and anyone imprisoned by the enemy. I feel like I've been abandoned. Everything I've learned and grown up with is a lie," Evytar laments in the footage, referring to a common Israeli value of leaving no one behind.

This is the second video of Evyatar David that Al Qasam has published in less than 24 hours, after the group released another one on Friday afternoon in which the young man does not speak, but which made his extreme thinness visible.

Furthermore, on Thursday night, Palestinian Islamic Jihad released another video of captive Rom Braslavski, also visibly malnourished, in which he continued to cry, pleading with the government to allow food into Gaza.

Hamas routinely releases videos of hostages, a tool of psychological pressure on Israel, at critical moments in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations. They are currently at a standstill, and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is in the country to address the situation.

The images were also released at a time when Gaza is suffering a severe famine crisis caused by Israel, which has blocked the entry of food into Gaza for months. Between March 2 and May 19, the closure was complete, while the flow of aid is now very limited.