Former Hamas hostage Rom Braslavski shared a harrowing account from Hamas captivity in Gaza in an interview with the Hidabroot Channel.
Braslavski shared one especially extreme moment, when he considered ending his own life: "I had a suicide mission. I told myself that if the war ends and I'm still here, I won't commit suicide, because suicide is forbidden, but I will make a suicide party."
According to Braslavski, there was a moment when he managed to reach one of the terrorists' guns: "I grabbed the Kalashnikov, I cocked it. I had about four minutes alone with the gun, I just got cold feet; I couldn't continue."
He also recounted how he experienced some very difficult situations and was even close to death several times: "From October 7th until my release, I experienced with my own eyes divine providence. I saw death before my eyes, I even experienced clinical death, and the moment you are saved time and again, I'm alone, and I'm beaten, and I stand in front of a wall, without eyes, without legs, without arms, nothing, you can't do anything, a hostage."
Braslavski said that faith accompanied him the entire time: "I know that G-d is here with me, and I know that there is a reason for these beatings. That is the price I accept on myself."
Braslavski also spoke about the Passover holiday he experienced in captivity, recounting that he chose to refrain from eating leavened bread despite the severe lack of food: “I decided not to eat pitas. When I told him that, he refused, he said I had to eat that pita and a half, and that he wasn’t asking me. What I did was, I was with a Thai hostage. When he brought the food, the Arab would leave, and I would give my pitas to the Thai."
When asked what he lived on, he replied simply: “I wasn’t really nourished. I lived on a plate of rice, maybe a bit of beans."