Former Gaza hostage Rom Braslavski describes torture and sexual abuse
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SPECIAL: In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, former hostage Rom Braslavski said he suffered physical and emotional abuse while held above ground by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, sometimes surviving on just half a pita and a morsel of cheese, and was injected with an unknown substance after passing out from exhaustion during a transfer on the Strip.
19-year-old Braslavski was kidnapped from the Supernova festival during the Hamas-led massacre of October 7, 2023, where he was working as a security guard while completing his compulsory military service, and he hid this fact for months. For the first four months of his captivity, he pretended to be a 16-year-old boy selling shawarma at a festival.
A terrorist he identified as a Palestinian Islamic Jihad cyber expert then arrived with a laptop and a headset and began questioning him. Fearing that his privacy would be revealed, Braslavski later revealed his identity.
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This screenshot from the video released July 31 by the Jerusalem Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian terrorist organization Islamic Jihad, shows Rom Braslavski, posted by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. (Hostages and Missing Families Forum/AFP via Getty Images)
“They immediately reduced my food by three-quarters,” he told Fox News Digital. “I was content with half a pita, some cheese, a rotten tomato and a small bottle of water, where before I had two or three pitas and a liter of water.”
Braslavski, who said he was kept in isolation with no daylight for the next three months, described the experience as so dark and lonely that he started banging his head against the wall.
At this point he had to march to a sprawling complex of approximately 20,000 tents near Nasser Hospital. Along the way, he collapsed from hunger and fatigue, was injected with an unknown substance, and was forced to continue moving.
“I was surrounded by members of Islamic Jihad. No one told me where we were going. I cried, thinking they were going to kill me or take me to a tunnel to torture me more aggressively,” Braslavski told Fox News Digital.
Rom Braslavski and Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion at the Jerusalem Winners Marathon. (Photo credit: Jerusalem Marathon/Arnon Bossani)
“I walked with no energy, breathing the air as if these were my last breaths, thinking this would be the last time I would see daylight. I kept walking,” he added.
Braslavski said tents in the complex were packed tightly with no privacy, while vehicles destroyed by missiles were converted into temporary shelters. There were donkeys and camels in the camp and people were defecating in the open. He described extreme heat that made it difficult to breathe.
Braslavski stayed in such a tent for four months. While the terrorist on duty instructed others not to mistreat him, one of the four guards, whose name he could not share, ignored these orders.
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Braslavski said, “He did his best to break me. Once he brought me food, spit in it and forced me to eat. He constantly humiliated me. I had a small opening in the tent to breathe air and he would come and close it. When I said I couldn’t breathe, he would slap me and laugh with the others. He would show me videos of violence against our soldiers. He would tie my hands and feet for no reason.”
Although he should not be physically harmed without reason, Braslavski said the guard routinely insulted him, threatened his family and forced him to perform degrading acts until they became unbearable.
Rom Braslavski was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023. (Hostages and Missing Families Forum)
Braslavski told Fox News Digital that the abuse filled him with hatred, which prompted him to attack the guard with all his might and use everything he could find around him to cause harm, ultimately succeeding.
“He started running to get his Kalashnikov and I realized I could either continue or put a bullet in his head. I kept hitting him with all my strength. He got weak. I was weak too, but my body and mind disconnected from everything and I kept going,” Braslavski said. Braslavski explained.
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Nova Foundation President Reef Peretz looks at the names and faces of people killed during the Nova festival at “Nova Music Festival Exhibition: October 7, 6:29 AM, The Moment Music Stood Still” in New York on April 18, 2024. (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images for Nova Music Festival Exhibition)
Three or four minutes later, another terrorist intervened and the guard Braslavski attacked was taken to the hospital.
“The next day was the second darkest day of my life, after October 7. It was seared into my memory, my soul and my body. The lead terrorist decided to respond harshly to what I had done, and from there I fell into a cycle of constant abuse,” he said.
Braslavski said that from then on he was not allowed to sleep more than an hour and a half a day in short bursts.
“They were hitting me with whatever they had. I was subjected to severe torture, bondage and sexual abuse. They did everything they could to me. My body is still covered in scars. After four months of torture, I was clinically dead, rolled my eyes and fainted. They decided to stop the violence and brought doctors to treat me with injections and gave me food again,” he added.
Rom Braslavski and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. (Italian Prime Ministry)
During Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which began in May 2025 to defeat Hamas and force the return of hostages through military pressure, Braslavski said the terrorist overseeing his guards was injured and lost a family member, triggering a new cycle of torture and starvation.
In his statement to Fox News, he said, “I was 49 kilos and the 90-kilo senior terrorist was jumping on my neck and trying to break it. I was on the verge of death again. That’s when the propaganda video was released showing me and it is possible to see the traces of abuse on my body. My bones were sticking out. I could no longer go to the toilet normally. Everything in my body had stopped functioning. I was on the verge of death and that’s when President Donald Trump stepped in.” Digital.
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With each step forward in negotiations towards the agreement, Braslavski said his condition gradually improved until he was released in October 2025 after 738 days in captivity.
He said it was his faith that kept him a free man.
“I have a dark past, but I must have a bright future. I want to forget what happened, but I can’t. God gave me back my life as a gift, not once, but twice. I have to do at least the bare minimum, which is to live, rehabilitate myself and leave all this behind,” he said.
