The horrific videos of starved-to-the-brink-of-death Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski should shock the conscience of the world — yet Israel-haters who’ve thundered about alleged mass starvation in Gaza have nothing to say after a look at the real thing.
The footage evokes painful memories of the Holocaust, the war against the Jews, with Nazi concentration camp prisoners transformed into skeletons.
Both young men were healthy and strapping when kidnapped from the Nova Music Festival almost two years ago; today they’re emaciated ghosts of their former selves.
Ever since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, propagandists have howled about the “imminent” famine that they insisted Israel was causing in Gaza.
“Half a million people in Gaza are on the brink of famine while the rest are enduring emergency levels of hunger,” cried the UN World Food Programme, less than a week after Hamas slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 250 more.
The “brink” of famine kept stretching out further and further. In May this year, the United Nations breathlessly warned that “14,000 babies in Gaza could die in the next 48 hours.”
This claim got retracted after a spokesman explained it meant 14,000 babies could die if they got no aid by March 2026.
Last month, the New York Times ran a viral photo of a baby “famine victim” who, it turned out, was actually suffering from genetic medical conditions. Uncropped pictures show the tot’s older brother standing by, looking sufficiently fed and healthy.
Yes, Gazans are suffering. But Hamas — which routinely steals humanitarian aid meant for civilians — deserves the blame for its brutal and cynical use of the plight of the people as a weapon in the war of public opinion.
For all the wailing about “mass starvation,” no one has been able to provide a picture of an adult truly starving to death in Gaza, much less of the kind of famine seen in historical pictures from verified periods of true, widespread hunger.
That is, until Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad gave us videos of Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David, prisoners the terrorists are intentionally depriving of food to ramp up pressure on Israel to end its war.
Yet the usual suspects who cry crocodile tears over Israel’s “genocide” have totally ignored the plight of two Israeli hostages being deliberately starved to death.
AOC, Bernie Saunders and Zohran Mamdani have said nothing.
Nor has the world rallied to Israel’s side, offering serious help to defeat Hamas and save the hostages.
Rom Braslavski’s mother, Tami, issued a searing statement: “Until now, you could only imagine how Rom and the other hostages are suffering,” she implores. “Now you’ve seen it with your own eyes. I’m crying out to the world — what will you do about it?”
Let her cry echo through the chamber of the UN General Assembly, the Democratic Party and the nerves and sinews of every apologist for Hamas and amplifier of its lies.
Decent people of the world need to speak up — and act: Free the hostages now.
