Released Israeli Hostage Forced to Excavate His Burial Site Returning to His Old Self', Dad States
The parent of a freed Israeli hostage who was made to dig his own grave in a Gaza underground passage has mentioned that his son's condition is "getting better every day".
The father was commenting after his 24-year-old son Evyatar David and another two liberated captives - another former captive and the third hostage - were released from medical center to a celebratory reception at their homes on the weekend.
"It's hard to describe how happy it gives me to see him returning to his former self," Avishai David stated further.
During August, two months before Evyatar's release, Hamas had released a footage showing him extremely thin in a narrow concrete tunnel - a move that received criticism from Israel and many international officials.
The parent reported he was delighted to see his son's "energy enhancing every day, his color coming back [to his face], his facial features turning fuller".
"Fortunately, he survived and he's strong."
Avishai David stated he had endured for several months aware that his son was only "50 miles away... and there was nothing I could do to help him".
"It devastated me," he commented, adding that he "couldn't sleep, consuming food, hydrate adequately."
During August, family member Ilay had described the Hamas video as a "new form of brutality".
"He resembles a skeleton. He was being deprived of food to the point where he could be dead at any time, and he endures a great deal," Ilay stated at the time.
In the video the material, the hostage mentioned: "I haven't consumed food for several days... I hardly obtained drinking water." He was seen shoveling what he stated would be his own grave.
During Sunday, joyful gatherings - comprising many acquaintances and neighbours - received the former hostage as he came back to his birthplace of Kfar Saba in Israel's central region.
The hospital director, chief at the healthcare center where the 3 released captives were treated, mentioned their bodies still showed the marks of "this horrific detention".
"We can see their medical tests... and we've also heard their accounts... they are not lying. You can witness the marks of this physiological injury. Their dermis tells their experience. You can see the scars and the lesions."
But Dr Shteinman added that the captives "returned tougher than they were previously".
Evyatar was taken from the Nova event during the Hamas-led offensive on Israel's southern region on the seventh of October, 2023.
The former captive and 19 other alive detainees have been released by the militant group under the initial stage of a US-brokered halt in fighting agreement this month.
The militant group has also released fifteen out of 28 dead hostages. 13 were Israeli citizens, a single person was Nepalese and the additional Thai national.
As compensation, Israel has released two hundred fifty Arab inmates and 1,718 prisoners from Gaza, and given back fifteen corpses of Palestinians for every Jewish captive's remains.
Military personnel launched a armed mission in Gaza in response to the October 7th, 2023 assault, in which Hamas-led gunmen murdered about 1,200 individuals in Israel's southern region and took 251 additional people hostage.
Over 68,000 individuals individuals have been fatally injured by Jewish state military actions in Gaza since then, according to the militant group-controlled health ministry, whose numbers are regarded by the international organization as reliable.
