WATCH: Mother Responds to ‘Nightmare’ Hostage Propaganda Video

“I can’t stand, and I can’t walk to the bathroom,” Rom Braslavski says through tears in a hostage propaganda video released over the weekend.  

Hamas took Braslavski hostage from the Nova Music Festival in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. His family gave permission Sunday for the video of the young man to be released publicly.  

“I tried to suppress the reality, but when I watched the video, reality hit me,” Tami Braslavski said in a statement after viewing the video. 

“When you hear him saying these things out loud, it becomes truth despite how difficult it is to believe. The nightmare I was only afraid to imagine is real,” the mother said. “The fear we live with has become more tangible than ever, and it’s important that the whole world sees this, despite my personal difficulty in publicly showing my Rom in the dire condition he’s in.” 

The young hostage says he does not have food or water.  

“I can’t sleep. I can’t live. You have to stop what you’re doing here,” Braslavski says. “What’s wrong with you? What’s gotten into you? Why are you doing this to us? Bring in food. I am surviving on less than a liter of water.”  

The hostage says he lays on a mattress all day, warning he is “on the verge of death.”  

“Please stop this hell that we are in,” Braslavski pleads.  

“I have never seen my son like this,” the mother said, before speaking directly to her child: 

My Rom, I look into your eyes and see the disappointment, your heartbreak. I listen to your voice and hear the pain. I don’t know what will happen, but I am doing and will do everything to get you out of there, and I won’t stop until you come home. 

The release of the video followed another hostage propaganda video released Friday of Evyatar David. In the video, David speaks to the camera as he digs a hole in a tunnel, saying he has not “eaten for a few days in a row,” adding, “[This] is the grave I think I’m going to be buried in.”  

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement following the release of the two videos, pledging to “free our kidnapped sons, to eliminate Hamas, and to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to the State of Israel.”  

The videos come amid increased calls for more humanitarian aid to be permitted to enter Gaza. Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have pushed back on claims that Israel is not allowing enough aid into Gaza, and that there is starvation in Gaza.  

“You see them languishing in a dungeon,” Netanyahu said Sunday of the hostages. “But the monsters of Hamas surrounding them, they have thick, fleshy arms. They have everything they need to eat. They are starving them, just as the Nazis starved the Jews.” 

“And when I see this, I understand exactly what Hamas wants. It doesn’t want a deal,” Netanyahu said. “It wants to break us through these horrific videos, through the false horror propaganda it spreads around the world.”