Hamas has released a video of an emaciated Israeli hostage digging his own grave inside a small tunnel in Gaza.
In the video, Evayatar David says: “This is the grave I think I’m going to be buried in. Time is running out. You are the only ones who can end this.”
The video was approved for publication by his family despite concerns that Mr David was speaking under duress and being used as a propaganda tool by the terror group.
It is the third time Hamas and affiliated groups have released videos of what appear to be starving hostages in recent days.
On Sunday morning the EU called the videos appalling and barbaric and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said he had met families of hostages to express his “profound shock”.
It comes as Gazans face a major food crisis, with widespread reports of malnutrition and hunger. Israel has been accused of intentionally starving the Strip to force Hamas into a surrender as part of a hostage release deal.
Six more people died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run health ministry said on Sunday.
It came as Israel said it allowed a delivery of fuel to the enclave. Egyptian state news said two trucks carrying 107 tons of diesel were set to enter Gaza, months after Israel severely restricted aid access to the enclave before easing it somewhat as starvation began to spread.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, said later in the day that four tankers of UN fuel had entered to help in operations of hospitals, bakeries, public kitchens and other essential services.
Hamas’ armed wing is ready to deliver Red Cross aid to the hostages it is holding in Gaza if Israel opens humanitarian corridors permanently and halts “all forms of air traffic” during the delivery of packages to the hostages, its military spokesman said on Sunday.
The response came after Mr Netanyahu requested that the ICRC help provide food to the hostages held in Gaza, and after the agency issued a “call to be granted access to the hostages”.
In the most recent video, Mr David is heard appealing to Mr Netanyahu to get him and the remaining 49 hostages out, accusing him of “abandoning” them.
Mr David, 24, shows a calendar of the month of July that he himself made, explaining which days he ate, mostly lentils and beans. At the end of the video Mr David, bare chested, pale and weak, is shown digging his own grave.
His brother, Ilay, accused Hamas of using him in “one of the most horrific and calculated campaigns of cruelty imaginable – a live hunger experiment”.
“It’s an act so vile, it scars the very soul of humanity,” he said at a rally for the hostages in Tel Aviv on Saturday.
The David family also released a joint statement, predicting that he only has a few days left to live in his current condition.
“The humanitarian aid that the world, together with Israel, provides to the residents of Gaza must also reach Evyatar,” the family said, calling on the Israeli government, the US and the rest of the world to do “everything possible to save Evyatar from death and ensure, by any means necessary, that he urgently receives food and medical care”.
Omer Wenkert, an Israeli former hostage, also spoke at the rally on Saturday, saying that he believed the Hamas captors will have a plentiful supply of food.
“I know they have food there beyond the door. I used to smell it every day while I was getting two handfuls of rice a day. They have light, they have everything there to give, so why, why, why don’t they give it?” he said.
Other former hostages have also testified that Hamas brought humanitarian aid from international NGOs down the tunnels, “eating like kings” without offering anything to the captives.
‘Terrible suffering’
Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s foreign minister, called on his counterparts around the world to express a “moral and ethical stance and to exert every possible influence to end the terrible suffering of the Israeli hostages”.
Mr Sa’ar also initiated a special UN Security Council meeting on the issue of the Israeli hostages and their situation.
“The world cannot remain silent in the face of the difficult images that are the result of deliberate sadistic abuse of the hostages, which also includes starvation by Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” Mr Sa’ar said.
David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, said: “The images of hostages being paraded for propaganda are sickening. Every hostage must be released unconditionally. Hamas must disarm and have no control over Gaza.”
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, called the videos “appalling”, saying that they “expose the barbarity of Hamas”.
“All hostages must be released immediately and unconditionally. Hamas must disarm and end its rule in Gaza. At the same time, large-scale humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach those in need,” Ms Kallas said.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said the hostage videos showed “inhumanity without bounds”.
Speaking of the “unbearable images”, Mr Macron said: “Abject cruelty, inhumanity without bounds: this is what Hamas represents.”
On Saturday tens of thousands of people had rallied in Tel Aviv to urge Mr Netanyahu’s government to secure the release of the remaining hostages.
The Israeli premier, who has faced mounting international pressure to halt the war, called on “the entire world” to take a stand against what he called “the criminal Nazi abuse perpetrated by the Hamas terror organisation”.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,430 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.
Overnight from Saturday to Sunday, air raid sirens sounded in Israeli communities near the Gaza border, with the military saying that “a projectile that was launched from the southern Gaza Strip was most likely intercepted”.
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