The family of an Israeli hostage who was pictured digging his own grave looking like a shadow of his former self, has finally been reunited with him after two years in Hamas captivity.
Evyatar David, 24, was abducted by Hamas at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, where 378 people were killed. He had texted his family at the time to say they were “bombarding the party.”
Shortly after, his family received another message — this time from an unknown number — showing Evyatar handcuffed on the floor of a dark room.
In August, disturbing footage emerged showing Evyatar in captivity. Pale, frail, and skeletal, he was barely recognisable — a stark contrast to the bronzed and muscular man he had been before October 7.
“We are forced to witness our beloved son and brother, Evyatar David, deliberately and cynically starved in Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza — a living skeleton, buried alive,” the family said in a statement.
In the video released by Hamas, Evyatar was heard saying, “I haven’t eaten for days…I barely got drinking water,” before digging what he claimed would be his own grave.
Now, nearly two years later, Evyatar has been freed and reunited with his loved ones. His friends and family gathered at his best friend’s home in Hod HaSharon, near Tel Aviv, to witness his release.
Rinat Israeli, 54, who organised the gathering, said there were no words to capture the moment.
Her son, Sagi, 24, is one of Evyatar’s closest friends.
“I was waiting for this moment for two years. When he was inside it was like I could not breathe. This is the feeling,” she told the Daily Mail.
“You are waiting for this moment every day. Every moment I talked to him, I sent him the sun and the wind and the love. I wished him good morning and good evening.
“Every single moment he was in there, it is like you are living in two places. Now I can start to breathe again.”
Guy Melamed, 24, a student from Zippori in northern Israel, said it was a weight off the shoulders of Evyatar’s friends and family to know he would finally be returning home.
He told the Mail he had been at Ms Israeli’s house since 8am the previous day, talking, playing board games, and drinking, all while anxiously waiting for Evyatar’s release.
Evyatar’s friends and family cheered, sang and drank as they waited for the Red Cross trucks to arrive and for the hostages to be freed.
The release of hostages under the first phase of a ceasefire agreement brings an end to 738 days of captivity, following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that triggered a devastating two-year war in Gaza.
US President Donald Trump hailed the moment as an “end of an age of terror and death.”
Addressing the Knesset in Israel, Trump said: “After so many years of unceasing war and endless danger, today the skies are calm, the guns are silent and the sirens are still.”
“This is not only the end of a war, this is the end of an age of terror and death and the beginning of the age of faith and hope, and of God,” he continued.
“It’s the start of a grand concord and lasting harmony for Israel and all the nations of what will soon be a truly magnificent region.”
At the same time, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails are being released as part of the deal.
The Israeli military also confirmed that the Red Cross is en route to southern Gaza to receive several coffins containing the bodies of hostages.
In a televised address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the release of hostages a “historic event that some people did not believe would happen.”
Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians continued making their way north toward Gaza City — the epicentre of Israeli strikes over the past two months — in hopes that the ceasefire, brokered by the United States, Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, would mark the end of the war.
“There is a lot of joy among the people,” said Abdou Abu Seada, noting that the celebration was tempered by deep fatigue after a war that has killed more than 60,000 people and left much of Gaza in ruins.
