From the Liveblog of
Sunday, February 23, 2025
‘No greater cruelty’: Father decries Hamas forcing hostage son watch others be freed
The families of Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal are expressing horror and revulsion at a Hamas propaganda video showing the two hostages being brought to watch other Israelis being released and begging for their own freedom.
“They forced them to watch their friends being released and then returned them to the tunnels. There is no greater cruelty,” Dalal’s father Ilan Dalal says. “They can’t continue. It’s simply inhumane.”
Dalal says he supported the decision for Israeli networks to broadcast the Hamas propaganda clip in hopes it will help illustrate their dire situation and help push through a second stage of the ceasefire deal, which would see the two freed, along with nearly two dozen other living hostages. However, he adds that he assumed the two were coached on what to say, making their words meaningless, though not their body language.
“Guy is thinner, his eyes looked scared, but it was Guy, his voice and his movements were like Guy,” Dalal says.
He notes that neither appeared to be injured, and were likely not as bad off as some others, but were still “relatively thin, and had gone through severe psychological torture.”
Guy Dalal’s sister is quoted by Walla saying in a missive to her brother that she is “heartbroken with longing” for him, but expresses confidence that he and David “will return to us soon. Until then we won’t stop fighting with all our might.”
In the US, Elise Stefanik, President Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to the UN, says she was with brothers of Gilboa Dalal and David at a speech by Trump when the video was released.
“Hamas’ evil depravity knows no bounds.” she writes on X. “The inhumane treatment of innocent Israeli hostages forced to watch others return home while they were then taken back into captivity further exposes that this is a war is between good and evil.”
Hamas’ evil depravity knows no bounds. The inhumane treatment of innocent Israeli hostages forced to watch others return home while they were then taken back into captivity further exposes that this is a war is between good and evil.
At the very moment that the video was…
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) February 22, 2025
