{"id":1026283,"date":"2026-08-26T23:44:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T23:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1026283\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T23:44:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T23:44:15","slug":"former-hostage-celebrates-other-ex-hostages-wedding-as-victory-over-hamas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1026283\/","title":{"rendered":"Former hostage celebrates other ex-hostage’s wedding as victory over Hamas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s the biggest closure and a huge moment of victory,\u201d former Gaza hostage Evyatar David said about Eliya Cohen, another former hostage, recently getting married, during an interview with CNN on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The interview marked the first time the 25-year-old had spoken to international media about his experiences as a Hamas hostage following his abduction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey tried to ruin our [lives] and our families\u2019 lives and eventually they didn\u2019t manage to ruin everything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the former hostage explained that he was still suffering from intense psychological trauma from his experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can surprise me any time, one hour I can be fine and happy, and next I can remember something from captivity, and get flashbacks,” he told CNN. “I wake up at night with nightmares, and it affects me all day after that. It\u2019s very unstable and random.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA HAMAS propaganda video shows 24-year-old Evyatar David, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, a haunting image of a starved hostage published by subhuman terrorists. (credit: Embassy of Israel to the USA\/X)<\/p>\n

The Israeli government, David claimed, was not providing enough support<\/a> for himself and the other former hostages. \u201cI hope the next government will do better, I don\u2019t know who it\u2019s going to be, but I trust they will do better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

David was abducted from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, together with his childhood best friend, Guy Gilboa-Dalal. He was held hostage by Hamas until October 13, 2025.<\/p>\n

Hamas starved hostage before propaganda video of digging his own grave<\/strong><\/p>\n

During that time, Hamas released propaganda videos of David, one of which showed him and Gilboa-Dalal forced to witness a staged release ceremony for other captives in February 2025, only to be left behind. The second, released in August 2025, showed David gaunt and pale, emaciated and digging his own grave, shocking the nation.<\/p>\n

During his CNN interview, David discussed how weak he had been during the filming of the latter video<\/a>, due to the starvation inflicted upon him by his captors.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s all staged, but it relies on the truth \u2013 we didn\u2019t eat for three months<\/a>,\u201d he explained. “You can see my body, I could barely move, when I tried to dig the grave, just to hold the shovel was almost impossible, probably the hardest physical thing I ever did.\u201d<\/p>\n

His guards, on the other hand, had food, air conditioning, and television, David told CNN.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told us there is no food in Gaza, but we knew it\u2019s not true \u2018cos we always saw the terrorists \u2013 they were fat and had muscles. We knew they were lying and starving us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could hear them laughing, eating cakes and drinking tea, like there is nobody walking next to them that looks like a skeleton.”<\/p>\n

Former hostage does not think peace is possible<\/strong><\/p>\n

David expressed pessimism about the possibility of US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace succeeding in its mission to secure a lasting peace between Israel and Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think it’s possible,” he said, “because their pure ideology, they just want the whole land. They don’t really care about Gaza. I could see in their eyes – It’s the thing that they want the most.”<\/p>\n

Danya Saperstein contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s the biggest closure and a huge moment of victory,\u201d former Gaza hostage Evyatar David said about Eliya…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1026284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[70,6385,4527,6384,99,50,20864],"class_list":["post-1026283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-gaza","tag-gaza-hostages","tag-hamas","tag-hostage","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-the-october-7-massacre"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117164473430298944","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1026283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1026284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1026283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1026283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1026283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}