Netanyahu 'shocked' by new videos of Israeli hostages in Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his "deep dismay" at the latest videos released by Hamas of two Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip, images that shocked the country.

The release on Thursday by Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad of three videos showing two emaciated Israeli hostages, identified as Rom Breslevski and Avyatar David, has rekindled debate in Israel about the need to quickly reach an agreement to release them.

"The Prime Minister expressed his deep dismay at the images released by the Hamas terrorist organization and told the families that efforts to recover all our hostages are continuing," his office said overnight.

In the images, the two captives appear very weak and thin, in a staging intended to draw a parallel with the current humanitarian situation in Gaza, threatened by "widespread hunger" according to the UN.

Evyatar David (24), kidnapped on 10/7/23, subjected to deliberate starvation. Reduced to a living skeleton in a tunnel, while Palestinians celebrate with meals. International hypocrisy ignores his captivity while rewarding terrorists with a “Palestinian state.” pic.twitter.com/IzMLOw7p0D

— Israel News (@estadoisrael) August 2, 2025

Netanyahu accused Hamas of "deliberately starving the residents of the Gaza Strip, preventing them from receiving aid" and urged the international community to "condemn the criminal Nazi abuses" of the Islamist movement.

President Isaac Herzog and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar reacted in kind, with the latter announcing that he had "convened a special meeting of the UN Security Council" on the issue.

European Union Foreign Minister Kaja Kallas denounced the "horrific images of Israeli hostages" and demanded their "immediate" release.

For his part, the far-right Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem early in the morning, a visit that Muslims often consider a provocation.

"Just as we demonstrated that it is possible to exercise our sovereignty over the Temple Mount, it is also possible to 'conquer the entire Gaza Strip' and 'encourage voluntary emigration,'" the minister declared.

The war was triggered by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which left 1,219 people, mostly civilians, dead on the Israeli side , according to a count based on official data.

Islamist militants also kidnapped 251 people, 49 of whom remain captive in Gaza. Of these, 27 are believed to have died, according to the Israeli army.

In retaliation, Israel has killed at least 60,430 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas-ruled territory's Health Ministry, considered reliable by the UN.

Since the start of the war, Israel has besieged the Gaza Strip, where more than two million Palestinians live in overcrowded conditions. At the end of May, it lifted the total humanitarian blockade it had imposed in early March, but is only allowing in very limited amounts of aid, deemed insufficient by the UN.

According to the Civil Defense, 19 people were killed on Sunday by Israeli gunfire or shelling , nine of whom were waiting for food near a distribution center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an organization supported by Israel and the United States.

A Palestinian Red Crescent employee was killed and three others were wounded in an Israeli attack on the organization's headquarters in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, the organization said.