Israel in Turmoil: Netanyahu Expresses Appall as Hostages' Videos Surface
In a troubling turn of events, three new hostage videos were released by Hamas over the weekend, featuring Rom Breslevsky and Avyatar David, two Israeli citizens taken during the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. The videos show the hostages in a dire condition, appearing gaunt and weakened, sparking international outrage and widespread calls for their immediate release.
As of early August 2025, 49 hostages remain held in Gaza, with around 20 believed to still be alive. The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, expressed deep dismay at the videos and had a long conversation with the families of the hostages on Saturday night. Netanyahu accused Hamas militants of deliberately starving the hostages and filming them cynically and odiously.
The hostage crisis is intertwined with a deepening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. The UN Security Council continues to hold urgent meetings focusing on both the hostages and the worsening humanitarian crisis. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), Gaza now faces "worst-case scenario" famine levels, with severe malnutrition especially affecting children (over 320,000 children under five are at risk). The Gaza Ministry of Health reports at least 181 hunger-related deaths since the conflict’s start, including 94 children.
The UN has stated that the current humanitarian situation in Gaza is threatened by a "general famine". Since the start of the war, Israel has besieged over two million Palestinians crammed into a territory of 365 km2, already subjected to an Israeli blockade for over fifteen years. Global protests, including from the European Union and the United States, have been directed against the signs of famine observed in the Palestinian enclave.
Diplomatic frameworks, such as outcomes from a recent UN conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, urge Hamas to release the hostages promptly and consider disarmament to enable ceasefire negotiations and a lasting solution. This approach has gained support from the League of Arab States for the first time, signaling hope for a broader regional impact on this issue.
France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot described the hostages' situation as "vile, intolerable" and called for their release, as well as for the disarmament of Hamas. The total humanitarian blockade Israel imposed in early March was lifted at the end of May, but only allows very limited quantities of aid in, deemed insufficient by the UN. A plane dropped four pallets of aid on the ravaged enclave of Gaza, but it is clear that much more is needed to alleviate the suffering of the people there.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. The Prime Minister's office accused the Islamic movement of preventing aid from reaching the inhabitants of Gaza and participating in a mendacious propaganda campaign against Israel. Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad published these videos since Thursday.
This ongoing crisis underscores the urgent need for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Gaza, ensuring the safety and well-being of all those affected. The international community must continue to press for the immediate release of the hostages and work towards alleviating the humanitarian crisis in the region.
The international community is intensifying its efforts in politics and general-news discourses, calling for the immediate release of the hostages, as tensions escalate between Israel and Hamas over the continued detention of the Israelis Rom Breslevsky and Avyatar David. In the backdrop, crime-and-justice debates revolve around Hamas's alleged mistreatment of the hostages and their deliberate withholding of basic amenities.
