Along with the slaughter of 1,200 Jews and others and the rape and mutilation of dozens of women, a central part of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom was the kidnapping of 251 hostages, forcing them into captivity in Gaza.
But more facts about Hamas’ brutality are coming out now that all remaining living hostages have been released. Their stories help lay bare the true character of the Jew-hating thugs.
Rom Braslavski, who spent 738 days in captivity, described Hamas’ depravity in an interview with Israel’s Channel 13. He was abducted from the popular Nova Music Festival, a prime Hamas target, where he had been working as a security guard. He was 19 years old.
Braslavski was kept alone the entire time, held by Hamas ally Islamic Jihad, except for 48 hours spent with fellow hostage Sasha Troufanov in Rafah in May 2024. For that brief period, “we spoke for hours, without stopping,” Braslavski said. He said he was often fed less than one piece of pita bread a day.
Conditions worsened in March 2025 after he refused the demand he convert to Islam. The captors reduced his already meager food ration, and his water ration to half a liter a day. They only allowed him to use the bathroom three times a day and kept him blindfolded almost all the time.
The thugs stepped up frequent beatings, including hitting him repeatedly with a metal whip.
The torture got even worse after August 2025, when Islamic Jihad released a video of an emaciated Braslavski describing how little he was given to eat. They began sexual abuse, stripping him naked and tying him up.
“It was sexual violence, and its main purpose was to humiliate me,” he said. “The goal was to crush my dignity.”
‘Tortured me because I’m a Jew’
“They tortured me for one reason: Because I am a Jew,” he told Channel 13. “They beat me because I’m Jewish. That’s it.”
The treatment of the hostages varied. Some were kept mostly above ground in the homes of Hamas supporters. There were those who were imprisoned with other hostages, while others were kept alone almost the whole time in Hamas’ tunnels. Some lost between 30% and 50% of their body weight.
Former hostage couple Keith and Aviva Siegel testified before the U.N. Committee against Torture, held in Geneva Nov. 12. Aviva was kept captive for 51 days, released in an earlier exchange for Hamas members imprisoned in Israel. Keith was kept captive for 484 days.
Keith Siegel was forced to watch while Hamas thugs beat a woman hostage as she lay on the floor with her hands and feet tied and mouth gagged.
The worse moments, Aviva Siegel testified, were seeing how the thugs “tortured my husband Keith [and] what they did to the girls. And I wasn’t even allowed to hug [them]” afterward.
These and a growing number of other hostages’ reports expose the lies of Hamas and its supporters. Hamas Political Bureau member Khalil Al-Hayya claimed Nov. 7 that the “Al-Aqsa Flood” — Hamas’ name for its Oct. 7 pogrom — “was a restoration of dignity against” the “marginalization” of the Palestinian issue. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal cynically referred to the hostages as “guests”!
Hamas says the current ceasefire is just a temporary “truce.” It’s using the time to reassert its dictatorial power in Gaza, and has already begun preparing for the next Oct. 7.