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National Post
4 days ago
- Politics
- National Post
Michael Higgins: Cousin of hostage Evyatar David speaks out about the dangers of appeasing Hamas
'The pictures take you back 80 years. But we were promised that those images of a living skeleton wouldn't come back. The promise was: never again.' Article content So says a heartbroken Tamar Eshet, cousin of Hamas hostage Evyatar David, who was seen in a recent disturbing video being forced to dig his own grave in a narrow tunnel somewhere in Gaza. Article content Article content In the video, David is pale, his body thin, bony, and wasted. Article content Article content Hamas released the video only days after Prime Minister Mark Carney joined U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron in saying they would recognize a Palestinian state. Article content Article content Likely emboldened by the announcements, the terrorists were happy to show the world how their depravity was starving the hostages to death. Hamas also said they would not disarm until a Palestinian state was established. Article content Far from pushing the path of peace forward, Carney and the others have succeeded only in giving succor to the terrorists. Article content National Post interviewed Eshet, who believes Hamas saw what the three world leaders were doing and immediately reneged on a hostage deal. Article content 'When you give (Hamas) power, when you give them a prize for their actions, then you are letting them starve the hostages because they say, 'OK, we are going to get whatever we want anyway.' Now the world can see the consequences of their actions, of their irresponsibility. (Hamas) took a step back from a hostage deal right now because of everything that happened and they feel like they can do anything. We are giving a prize to terror. Giving them power is justifying terror and the world has to think about what they are doing,' she said. Article content Article content Evyatar David was 22 years old, a barista in a cafe, when he and his friends attended the Nova music festival that was attacked by terrorists on October 7, 2023. Article content Article content David and his childhood friend, Guy Dalal, were among the 251 hostages taken by Hamas after the terrorists had butchered 1,200 people. Of those taken, 49 hostages are still in Gaza, but only about 20 are still believed to be alive. Article content 'Evyatar was 22 when he was kidnapped. He was still thinking what to study, what does he want to do with his life' said Eshet. Article content However, his favourite thing in the world, she said, was playing guitar and he dreamed of becoming a music producer. Article content 'He's a really calm guy. He's the advice giver to his friends, they would come to him,' she said. 'And we live next to each other. Our houses are close. We are a close family, and ever since October 7, we are even closer.' Article content As the slaughter began at the festival, David was hiding with friends in some bushes. Article content 'Two of his friends were murdered in a bush right next to him. He was kidnapped with one of his best friends, Guy Dalal. They know each other from kindergarten, and they're still being held together,' said Eshet. Article content Well, relatives believe they are being held together, but Hamas isn't the kind of organization that gives regular updates on its hostages. Article content In February, the anguished families of David and Dalal watched another Hamas propaganda video showing the two men. Article content Hamas filmed David and Dalal sitting in a van, watching a hostage handover ceremony. But the tantalizing glimpse of freedom was all that the men got. After the ceremony, they were taken back to Gaza and the tunnels where they are being imprisoned. Article content 'We hope that they are still together,' said Eshet. Article content Then last weekend, Hamas released a new video, this one showing a wretched, emaciated, and clearly starving David. In the video, David marks what looks like a handmade calendar and indicates days when he has eaten and days when he has not. At another point, he is seen digging a hole and says it is to be his own grave. Article content But if Hamas is trying to convince the world that all of Gaza is starving, the families of the hostages are not convinced. Article content Article content Eshet says that in the video an arm, presumably of a terrorist, can be seen handing a can of lentils to David. She notes that it is the arm of someone who has been well fed. Article content Hamas is deliberately starving the hostages, she says, but the terrorists are not going hungry. Article content 'Hamas isn't 'an organization that fights for the Palestinian people. They don't care about them. They starve them just as much as much as they starve Evyatar. They take away the food, they steal the food from their own people,' Eshet said. Article content The cruelty in the video was too much for David's mother. Article content 'His mother hasn't watched the latest videos because she thinks she would break down if she sees that. She can't see her son in this condition and she knows she has to be strong and keep on fighting for him and be strong for her other children,' said Eshet, noting that David has an older brother and a younger sister. Article content 'It's hard. We see the abuse, the torture, the starvation, and how cynically they do that. They use him for a video to show how they starved him. They were proud of it. They wanted to show the world how they're starving Evyatar. And it breaks my heart to see him fighting to even talk. We can see that he's using every breath he has to talk. It's scary because in this condition we really don't know how much longer he can survive.' Article content Eshet said she was shocked when she saw the video. Article content 'I didn't know what I was going to see. I froze. I was shaking and crying, and I didn't know what to do. You feel so useless and helpless. As a Jewish person, as a person who has family who's been in concentration camps, to see Evyatar like this, I don't think there's a word to describe the feeling: it's horror, it's pain.' Article content Seeing the video of David is a ghastly reminder for his family of the Holocaust and the haunting pictures of starving prisoners in the concentration camps. 'Our family is here only because we escaped from the Holocaust,' said Eshet. 'A lot of our great-grandparents were in concentration camps and in war camps and only my great-grandmother who came to Israel was the one who survived and had a family. Article content 'We were promised that those pictures would never be seen again. This is the time for the world to say never again, and to make sure it doesn't happen and to stop it.' Article content Eshet said the world must unite in bringing the hostages home. 'We have to bring all the hostages back home. The world has to speak up, and stop giving Hamas more power and giving prizes for their actions, because that's what's been done in the last couple of weeks.' Article content David and the other hostages may not have much time left, she said. 'They may have days or weeks in these conditions. The world must pressure Hamas to first give the hostages decent care, give them food and water and medicine and we know that they have this. That should be the first thing and then to get them back home. But time is not on our side.' Article content Eshet knows that ending the war and defeating Hamas is no simple thing. 'Defeating Hamas is about defeating an idea, an ideology, and it's much bigger than just the military aspect. It's more complicated than that. This is all part of a campaign and the world is falling for it right now, they're giving prizes to (Hamas) for starving Evyatar and for starving their own population. They (the politicians) need to have a responsibility when they do such things. We can't praise terror. We have to be on the good side of history,' she said. Article content Article content Article content
Globe and Mail
6 days ago
- Politics
- Globe and Mail
Family of hostage held by Hamas pleads for international response after release of videos
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. Canada airdrops aid into Gaza as Netanyahu defies mounting ceasefire pressure 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.' Opinion: Netanyahu will win the war in Gaza, but he's lost it in London, Ottawa and Washington 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. 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
Channel 4
04-08-2025
- Channel 4
Evyatar David body used as ‘propaganda tool of Hamas' – cousin of Israeli hostage
We spoke to Tamar Eshet, the cousin of Israeli hostage Evyatar David, who appears in one of the videos released by Hamas.
