Hostage Rom Braslavski’s family releases clip from Islamic Jihad propaganda video

The family of hostage Rom Braslavski on Tuesday published additional footage of the 21-year-old captive, taken from a video released by his Palestinian Islamic Jihad captors last week.

Unlike the first clip cleared for publication by his family, Braslavski’s face is not blurred in the latest segment.

“Hello to everyone watching this video, my name is Rom Braslavski, 21 years old, from Jerusalem,” he begins in the video. “I am a prisoner of the Islamic Jihad, and have been held in the Gaza Strip for over a year and a half.”

The content of the video is likely dictated by his captors.

“It has been a year and a half of suffering, every day is hell. It has been a year and a half of lacking food, lacking drink,” Braslavski continues. “There is no food. And there is no drink. The illnesses are severe, I’m sick half of the time.”

At this point, he lifts his shirt to reveal red sores across his torso that he says are constantly itchy.

משפחתו של רום ברסלבסקי פרסמה קטע נוסף מהסרטון שלו בשבי: "עובר שנה וחצי של סבל וגיהינום"

המבזק החברתי: https://t.co/3ChEFVCyJl
המבזק החברתי בטלגרם:https://t.co/z26wp6Skq9 pic.twitter.com/ff1E51UyPN

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— המבזק החברתי (@MivzakHervrati) April 22, 2025

“I suffer all day, I don’t know what to do with my life,” he says. “My mental state is very bad. My physical state is very bad. I have no life. I have no water. I have no food. I’m sick. There is no medicine. There is, of course, no hospital for me. Nobody will take me to the hospital.”

“The next time I am sick — nobody will take me to the hospital. What will happen is very simple: I will die and they will put me in a pit of sand,” Braslavski says.

Braslavski’s family said they decided to release the unedited footage published by his captors “so that his cry can be heard.”

“He’s not just screaming — he’s begging us to save him,” they said.

The video clip published by Islamic Jihad was the first recorded sign of life for Braslavski, who was abducted from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023.

Last month, Sasha Troufanov — released in the January hostage-ceasefire deal that has since collapsed — said he was briefly held alongside Braslavski in Gaza, providing the first evidence of any sort that the latter was alive after his abduction.

Rom Braslavski was taken captive by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 from the Nova desert rave. (Courtesy)

Rom’s mother, Tami Braslavski, recounted in an interview with Ynet the stories she’s heard of her son taking care of people amid the October 7 onslaught, when more than 5,000 Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

Rom “had a number of opportunities to get out of there that day,” his mother said, but “from 6:30 in the morning, until the moment he was kidnapped [between 2-4 p.m.], he was moving from place to place [helping people].”

“Some of them he rescued, some of them he encouraged, giving them the strength, the hope, the faith that they’d get out of there,” she said, adding that “dozens” of people had reached out to her with their own personal stories from that day.

Braslavski is among the 59 hostages being held by terror groups in the Gaza Strip, including 58 of the 251 abducted on October 7. They include the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF.

The 24 hostages presumed to be alive who are still held by Hamas: Top row, from left: Elkana Bohbot, Matan Angrest, Edan Alexander, Avinatan Or, Yosef-Haim Ohana, Alon Ohel. Second row, from left: Evyatar David, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, Bipin Joshi, Rom Braslavski, Ziv Berman, Gali Berman. Third row, from left: Omri Miran, Eitan Mor, Segev Kalfon, Nimrod Cohen, Maxim Herkin, Eitan Horn. Bottom row, from left: Matan Zangauker, Bar Kuperstein, David Cunio, Ariel Cunio, Tamir Nimrodi, Pinta Nattapong. (Hostages Families Forum)

Hamas released 30 hostages and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire between January and March. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war. In exchange, Israel has freed some 2,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, security prisoners, and Gazan terror suspects detained during the war.

Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.

The body of another soldier killed in 2014 is still being held by Hamas, and is counted among the 59 hostages.