LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The emaciated images of two Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have flooded the internet and the airwaves in recent days. The videos are difficult to watch. And one of those hostages is Evyatar David. For his family, it's a devastating glimpse into Evyatar's reality, his brother Ilay told me in an interview.
ILAY DAVID: Me and my mom, we just - we couldn't watch it. I mean, I know that I'll collapse if I watch the full video.
FADEL: Evyatar has been held in captivity in Gaza for 670 days. In the video, he has a shovel, and he's saying that he's digging his own grave. His bones are visible through his skin. Now, Ilay could not watch, but others in his family felt they must.
DAVID: My sister Ya'ala (ph) and my father, they had to watch. They needed to sense him somehow. Since then, my father, he cannot sleep. It really haunts him. My mom, she cries all day. But we're trying to be focused. I'm trying to be focused. I know that if I watch it, it will shut me down, and I need to save Evyatar's life right now because it's his life on stake right now. And he can be, I mean, starved to death if he will not get proper treatment very, very soon.
FADEL: What do you need? What do you - when you talk about saving his life, what do you want to happen?
DAVID: First and foremost, we need to make sure that Evyatar and the other hostages must get rescued now. Hamas must let at least the Red Cross to visit and give them long-term, proper treatment. They starve the hostages intentionally. All of it is part of their sick, twisted mind game. They use my brother as part of their starvation campaign. It really scars humanity.
FADEL: Can I ask what you mean by starvation campaign? I'm just trying to understand, I mean, because we're seeing images of a lot of people starving in Gaza also because aid is not getting in generally. So I guess I'm just trying to understand what you mean.
DAVID: Sure. So I'm not denying that there's hunger in Gaza Strip. But I believe that Hamas, as a cruel organization, he is using his own people as starvation experiments. There's enough humanitarian aid goes into the Gaza Strip to feed all the population there. But Hamas cynically using that aid to decide who lives and who dies.
FADEL: Ilay is echoing what the Israeli government and President Trump have said - that Hamas is systematically stealing aid meant for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Proof of that, though, has not been presented publicly. Meanwhile, aid groups that work on food distribution have told NPR they haven't seen the systematic theft of food meant for civilians. The starvation, they say, is because of an Israeli blockade on Gaza and a new distribution process that is described as a death trap.
I do want to talk about what's happened since these horrible videos have come out. I want to ask about what you actually want to happen in next steps.
DAVID: I want him to be home, and I want him to be saved. And that's the only thing I know. I mean, right now, I need to be my brother's voice, but I do think that eventually Hamas should be the one who's begging for a deal. He needs to want that deal. He needs to want that ceasefire.
FADEL: Is your brother older or younger than you?
DAVID: He's my younger brother. And really, I'll do anything to protect him. Anything.
FADEL: Yeah, of course. What else do you want the world to know about your younger brother?
DAVID: I play the piano, and he plays the guitar. We had a tradition. We played music every week together at my parents till October 7. He's also - I think he's shy but also full of life. And he's - I really learn how to be a good son from him. He's such a good son to my parents. I just - the image of him coming back home, the first image I see is my parents hugging him 'cause I'm really done with seeing my mother and my father heartbroken. He manifests the same things. He manifests hugging them and listening to my younger sister's secrets and playing music with me. I believe same thing is giving us hope and faith and strength to believe in a good ending to this.
FADEL: That was Ilay David, the brother of Evyatar David. The 24-year-old has been held hostage by Hamas now for 670 days. He's one of about 50 hostages still being held in Gaza. Only about 20 are believed to be alive. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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