The family of hostage Rom Braslavski on Friday released an additional still image from the video published a day earlier by the Islamic Jihad terror group.
Rom's father, Ofir Braslavski, spoke on Kan Reshet Bet radio, pleading for his son's release and expressing anguish over the footage. “I saw the video, and I’m horrified. He’s a skeleton, on the verge of death - it was very hard to watch,” he said. “Ten days ago, we were told he disappeared with his captors. Since then, there’s been silence. Where is everyone? Why isn’t anyone speaking up? Everyone is hiding. The only thing keeping me going is the hope we’ll get him back, but you can see in the video he’s slipping away. How do we go on like this?”
Sasha Troufanov, a former hostage who was held with Rom in captivity, responded to the footage: “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing - that this is the same person I saw over a year ago. The faith and strength in his eyes have been replaced with sadness, depression, and helplessness.”
He added, “The previous video was difficult, but today’s images - I can’t process. I hope everyone who believed we don’t need a deal, that eliminating Hamas is more important even at the expense of the hostages, woke up today and realized: We must bring them back now.”
“Anyone who sees these images without heartbreak, without a deep sorrow and a will to do everything to get him out - has no compassion or humanity. His face reflects unimaginable pain. Thinking of what he is enduring is unbearable.”
Troufanov concluded, “The Torah says, ‘Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.’ Anyone who thinks they can go on with life, concerned only for themselves while our brothers suffer in horrific captivity for 665 days - I cannot accept that. If we forget our brothers, we have already lost.”
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)