An Israeli who was freed in February after more than a year of captivity in Gaza told dozens of foreign ambassadors in Vienna on Friday about his ordeal in the hands of Hamas terrorists amid starvation and extreme thirst.
“There were days when we received only a single pita. We begged our captors, even offering them massages. We pleaded for every crumb and collected each one,” Tal Shoham said in his speech at the United Nations offices in Vienna. Meanwhile, his captors “always had abundant food, including fresh vegetables and fruits.”
The Israeli mission to the United Nations organized and live-streamed Shoham’s testimony.
Shoham, 39, came to Vienna with the families of Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Evyatar David, who remain in the Strip. All three men were among the 251 people abducted from Israel to the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023. Fifty-nine hostages, living and dead, are still being held in Gaza.
“I am here because I believe that each and every one of you holds power—the power to expedite the return of my brothers and sisters still in Gaza,” he told the diplomats.
“The international community cannot remain on the sidelines and allow Hamas and Islamic Jihad to grow like a cancer,” Shoham said. “As long as the world accepts terrorism as a legitimate tool, peace in the Middle East will remain an impossible dream, and the conflict will never end.”