Former Israeli hostage Evyatar David describes starvation, PTSD, and filmed propaganda during 738 days in Gaza captivity
Evyatar David, a 25-year-old Israeli who was abducted from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was held by Hamas in Gaza for 738 days before being released on October 13, 2025, as part of a US-brokered ceasefire deal. In his first international media interview since his release, David described conditions of extreme starvation, psychological coercion to appear in propaganda videos, and an ongoing struggle with PTSD and nightmares.
Single source · Not corroborated
Evyatar David was 22 years old when Hamas fighters abducted him from the Nova music festival alongside his childhood friend Guy Gilboa-Dalal during the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Two other friends in their group were killed that day. David and Gilboa-Dalal were taken into Gaza, where they spent most of their underground captivity together, according to CNN's interview with David.
David described the starvation he endured as having both a physical and psychological dimension. "The starvation – beyond the lack of food and physical feeling that you're always hungry – is the mental feeling that you have nothing to eat, and you don't know if you will have food in one hour, tomorrow, two days," he told CNN. He said the hunger created stress and conflict even among the hostages themselves, and that guards around him visibly had access to food, air conditioning, and television.
A Hamas propaganda video, released approximately one year before the CNN interview, showed David gaunt and holding a shovel in a tunnel, digging what he described as his own grave. David told CNN the video was staged but grounded in real deprivation: "It's all staged, but it relies on the truth – we didn't eat for three months." He said he was selected for the video because his physical state appeared worse than Gilboa-Dalal's, and that when he told his captors he had nearly collapsed, they ignored him. In February 2025, he and Gilboa-Dalal were brought to a staged release ceremony for two other hostages and filmed appealing for their own freedom, a video that hostage families characterized as psychological terror.