One year ago, Evyatar David appeared in a Hamas propaganda video, weak and skeletal, gripping a shovel in a concrete tunnel and digging what he said was his own grave.
This month, the former Israeli hostage smiled as he stood at his older brother Ilai’s wedding playing guitar with his sister as the couple exchanged vows.
“They tried to ruin our [lives] and our families’ lives and eventually they didn’t manage to ruin everything,” said David. He pointed to the wedding of another hostage, Eliya Cohen, as the ultimate form of triumph over captivity. “It’s the biggest closure and a huge moment of victory,” he said.
The 24-year-old was speaking to CNN in his first international media interview since his release nearly a year ago, and as any prospect of peace remains elusive. He spoke about the starvation he endured in captivity, how music has helped him through the difficult months that have followed his release – and of his determination to ensure the world doesn’t forget what he and his fellow hostages went through.
David was 22 when he was abducted from the Nova music festival during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel alongside his childhood friend, Guy Gilboa Dalal. Two other friends in their group were killed in the attack. David and Gilboa-Dalal were taken to Gaza, where they spent most of their underground captivity together.
David was among the last 20 living Israeli hostages in Gaza, released on October 13, 2025 , after 738 days in captivity as part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal.
In the months after his return, David largely avoided public appearances and focused on his rehabilitation. Last month, ahead of his first interview with Israeli TV, he revealed on social media that he is struggling with PTSD and other psychological effects.
“It can surprise me any time, one hour I can be fine and happy, and next I can remember something from captivity, and get flashbacks. I wake up at night with nightmares, and it affects me all day after that. It’s very unstable and random,” he told CNN.
David described what he calls “extreme starvation” during his captivity, which worsened in the months before the August 2025 video was filmed.
“The starvation – beyond the lack of food and physical feeling that you’re always hungry – is the mental feeling that you have nothing to eat, and you don’t know if you will have food in one hour, tomorrow, two days, you have no idea what is going to happen and maybe you are going to die from starvation,” he said. The deep hunger caused stress and conflict even between hostages, he added.
David said he was selected to appear in the video after his captors compared his physical state to Gilboa-Dalal’s. Since he looked worse, he said, “they decided I would be the actor of the video.”
“It’s all staged, but it relies on the truth – we didn’t eat for three months,” he said. “Everything I say and do there – they told me to do it. You can see my body, I could barely move, when I tried to dig the grave, just to hold the shovel was almost impossible, probably the hardest physical thing I ever did.” When he told his captors he had almost collapsed, he said they ignored him. “I could hear them laughing, eating cakes and drinking tea, like there is nobody walking next to them that looks like a skeleton,” he told CNN.
The guards, he said, had access to food, air conditioning, and television. “They told us there is no food in Gaza, but we knew it’s not true ‘cos we always saw the terrorists – they were fat and had muscles. We knew they were lying and starving us.”
It was not the first time Hamas had filmed him for propaganda. In February 2025, he and Gilboa-Dalal were brought to the staged release ceremony of two other hostages and filmed begging for their freedom. The video was released by Hamas in what hostage families described as psychological terror.
What sustained him underground, he said, was the thought of his family waiting outside, and the idea that “no matter how bad our conditions were, it could always get worse, so you can always find good things,” he said.
“When you feel at your lowest is the perfect time not to give up, because that’s the point that can break you. Once you understand that and don’t let it break you, you can find yourself in a better place. It doesn’t matter what you have been through – don’t give up when you feel you are going to break because this is where the turning point can be.”
David said his recovery is “very complicated.” He described himself as a “regular person” before he was a hostage. “Now it’s very different. It still takes time to process all this,” he said, “I’m trying to understand how to do good rehab and help myself with this.”
His family and friends have launched a crowdfunding campaign for his rehabilitation, as he said the state doesn’t provide enough help to the former hostages. “I hope the next government will do better, I don’t know who it’s going to be, but I trust they will do better.”
Music, David said, plays a significant role in his recovery process. During his captivity, his siblings organized weekly jam sessions in his honor at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square. It has become one of his main coping tools. “If I feel sad or upset, it’s one of the best things I can do if I want to run from my thoughts and feel calm and unstressed. I don’t know what I would do without music.”
Talking about his captivity is also helpful, he said, and he and his older brother plan to travel to the United States next month for a series of public appearances.
“It’s very important for us to keep our stories alive and that people understand and remember what we’ve been through,” he said. “The world needs to know what happened and can’t forget about it.”
