Hell Underground: Torture, Lynchings, and Sexual Abuse in Hamas Captivity

The Israeli Health Ministry has issued an urgent appeal to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), detailing the extreme abuse, torture, and neglect suffered by hostages held in Gaza since the October 7th massacre. The report follows the recent release of disturbing videos showing abductees Eviatar David and Rom Braslavski — visibly emaciated, broken, and in desperate need of urgent medical care.

A catalogue of human cruelty

The report, based on testimony from 12 released hostages, documents relentless physical and psychological abuse, deliberate starvation, denial of medical care, and prolonged captivity in inhumane underground conditions. Survivors describe being beaten, humiliated, bound for hours until losing feeling in their hands, and subjected to repeated lynchings by local mobs on their way to Gaza. Many were forced to witness the murder of family members and neighbors, deepening the trauma.

Women hostages reported sexual harassment and feared long-term fertility damage due to abuse and malnutrition.

Months underground in suffocating tunnels

Most hostages were kept for months in Hamas’s tunnel network — cramped spaces as small as two square meters, often with up to six people crammed inside, unable to stand. They slept on hard floors without mattresses, surrounded by insects, enduring freezing cold in winter and extreme heat in summer. Makeshift “toilets” consisted of waste pits dug into the ground; showers, if permitted at all, came once every few months, using cold water and shared towels. Clothing was rarely changed — underwear sometimes only twice a year.

Starvation as a weapon

Hostages received as little as one daily “meal” — often just a piece of pita or rice — sometimes going entire days without food. The meals were nutritionally worthless, often infested with worms or mold. Water was rationed and frequently contaminated, sometimes seawater or untreated sewage. The result was catastrophic weight loss — 15% to 40% of body mass — along with severe muscle atrophy, bone density loss, and life-threatening vitamin deficiencies such as scurvy.

Medical neglect and lasting damage

Many were wounded during the abduction, carrying shrapnel in their bodies, untreated fractures, burns, and nerve injuries that caused chronic pain and loss of mobility. Infections went untreated; medical “care” consisted of occasional fever-reducing pills, with no antibiotics for severe cases. Some hostages fainted while trying to treat themselves.

Post-release medical tests revealed alarming deficiencies — vitamin K and D shortages, internal bleeding in muscle tissue, and dangerously weakened immune systems. Survivors now face years of rehabilitation, with some injuries likely to remain permanent.

A call for immediate action

The Health Ministry warned the Red Cross that these conditions constitute grave breaches of international humanitarian law and demanded immediate international intervention to secure the hostages’ release and provide lifesaving treatment.

“These images,” the report concludes, “are the result of extreme and prolonged suffering. The world cannot remain silent.”