Content warning: This article discusses sensitive topics such as torture and sexual assault.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) tortured and beat him not because of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, but because he was a Jew, former hostage Rom Braslavski said in an interview with Hazinor, published on Channel 13 Thursday night.
"It's wrong to say that they tortured me because Ben-Gvir is provoking them in prisons," Braslavski said, recalling the words of one of his captors. "They only tortured me for one reason, because I am a Jew. This is why I got everything I got. Not because of Ben-Gvir, not because of Netanyahu, nothing else."
Braslavski's captors significantly worsened his situation in March 2025, after the second ceasefire deal concluded. At that point, Braslavski said that more of the family members of the terrorists were being killed.
His captor told him at that point that if he converted to Islam, he would be given a lot of food, and nobody would touch him. Braslavski refused. "I knew in my head that it would never happen. I told [the terrorist], I was born a Jew, I will die a Jew."
Then his captor told him that he received a note from above, instructing him to blindfold Braslavski. After a few days of being blindfolded, the captor also limited his bathroom breaks to three times a day: at 9 a.m., 4 p.m., and 9 p.m. "I was holding my pee for hours. It was a nightmare," Braslavski recalled. Then they reduced his drinking water from a liter to half a liter a day. At that point, he would receive only one falafel ball per day and a little rice.
he terrorist would ask if he could see any traces of light. When Braslavski said yes, he put another two shirts over his eyes so it would be pitch black. "Everything was black," Braslavski recounted to Hazinor, "I was afraid I would lose my sight."
After a week of being blindfolded, his captor said he received another letter from above, instructing him to close Braslavski's ears. One of the terrorists brought two stones from outside to put into Braslavski's ears. "He [the terrorist] took a nail and he pushed the stone into [my] ear with a nail, as deep as he could, and I was screaming," Braslavski said. "The terrorist didn’t care, and he just shoved it in deeper."
After that, the terrorist "tied the blindfold above my ears so there was more pressure on the ears" with the stones inside.
"To this day, I have bruising [inside my ear]," he told Hazinor. The terrorist had a smile on his face as he did this, Braslavski said.
"My brain felt like it was pounding...I never experienced such pain in my life." Then, he said, the terrorist began breaking objects on top of him, like a table and chairs. "When you move your head, you feel the pain from inside. You start to hear unclearly. So I told myself, Rom, Rom, it's ok, pull yourself together. They're not cutting you yet, you're fine." Braslavski said he could not sleep with this pain.
At this point, Braslavski said there was no food, not even a pita a day. "All day long, I wanted to go to the bathroom to pee. I am holding my pee all day long. I don’t see. I can’t really hear so well, and I have all this pain."
After a week, the terrorist returns with another letter at around noon. At this point, Braslavski reveals that his captor calls him Abu Salem rather than by his name. The terrorist says that the letter orders him to tie up Braslavski and torture him. He tells him with half a smile. He then leaves and returns at 9 p.m., with a couple of other men, holding flashlights and zip ties.
The terrorists tied his arms and legs, and put cellotape on his mouth. In the beginning, they hit him and punched him. Braslavski said that this was a light beating compared to what would come.
They left and then returned again at 2 a.m. and "beat the life out of" Braslavski. "I was never beaten like this before. They stood me up in front of the wall, one of them grabbed my head, and the other one was punching. I’m dizzy, and he continues. I’m trying to lose my consciousness and fall, and they don't let me lose consciousness. They grab me. After the punching, they began whipping and punching me. Every hit with the whip felt like a burn. To this day, I have scars from this."
At this point, Braslavski weighed only 53 kg. After this round, Braslavski said they returned again at 6 a.m. and beat him again, this time while playing Arabic party music. Braslavski said they were large men with big hands. They then left and returned at 12 p.m. Again, they played party music and this time, told him to dance with his hands and laugh. They then beat him again. They broke the radio on his head, and broke a big stick on him. "The whip was crooked from beating me," Braslavski recalled, saying it was made from iron.
Then they told him to lie down and whipped his feet. Then, they forced him to stand on his feet. He recalled he was beaten every day, seven times a day, for 20 minutes each time. One of the commanders weighed at least 100 kg (220 lbs), Braslavski said. He was just 50 kg at this point. The 100 kg commander stood and jumped on his neck, his head, and his back.
This was the point when the terrorists released the propaganda video of Braslavski. Between the takes of the video, they would stop and beat him. They told him to "talk s*** about Ben-Gvir" and about Netanyahu.
The terrorists threatened Braslavski that if he did not cooperate, they would put the blindfold back on and put the stones back in his ears. They forced him to cry in front of the camera. Braslavski said that the terrorists played the same Arabic party music so it would trigger him to cry in the video.
Braslavski begged the terrorists, "This one falafel, you give me a day, take it away, let me die from starvation, just leave me alone. Just stop beating me."
"I remember I had the courage to tell them, 'I’m not crying from hunger, I’m crying from what you are doing to me here.' I told him this sentence, then I was beaten again. But it was important for me to say it. I told him, 'Maybe you think it's just me and you here, and nobody sees us, but God sees me here, how I’m being tortured by you, and he sees you, how you torture me.' I told him it will not pass quietly. 'God will rip you apart. Wait for God’s response, and you will see what will happen to you.'"
After he said this, the terrorist became angry. He put the stones back in Braslavski's ears and the blindfold back on. He called Muhammad, his brother, and "the amusement park began again," Braslavski said sarcastically.
Then the torture became worse. Braslavski revealed that his captors stripped him naked, starved him, and tied him up while sexually assaulting him at this point, with tears in his eyes. “They stripped me of all my clothes, my underwear, everything. They tied me up while I was completely naked. I was torn apart, dying, with no food."
"It was sexual violence, and its main purpose was to humiliate me," he said. "The goal was to crush my dignity. And that's exactly what he did." “I prayed to God, ‘Please, save me, get me out of this already.’ And you just say to yourself, ‘What the f***?’”
Braslavski's capture to Gaza
Braslavski began the interview discussing the morning of October 7, trying to escape from the Nova music festival as the massacre began. "I had never seen a dead body before," he told Hazinor, "I thought they were plastic dolls." "I felt like I was in a movie," he said. He saw one terrorist and started to charge at him and shoved him with all his strength. The man was surprised, he said. "I sprinted as fast as I could. I never ran like this in all my life, and I was tired."
He then realized that he was running towards the Gaza border fence rather than away. "I saw a small trench with something green inside. I put my body inside, and said shema yisrael." When the terrorists eventually found him, the man he had shoved broke his nose before dragging him into a car and driving him into the Gaza Strip.
The terrorists brought Braslavski to an "improvised house, like a chicken coop," and tied him to a closet. His right arm and one of his legs were tied to either side of the closet, he clarified to Hazinor. "This is how it was 24/7."
After over a week, he became very hungry. He said he remembered a trick to get out of the ties. "I have a settler friend, and he was arrested, and he taught me a method of how to get out of handcuffs."
He detailed that there was a kitchen where he was being held, which still had gas. "Every time I heard a sound of someone coming, I went back running to the closet. I was living like that for a week," he explained.
He shared that he set a 21-day deadline, after which he would complete a "suicide mission" and make himself macaroni on the stove.
"I thought to myself, maybe I'll get caught, maybe I'll die, but I have to do this," he said. When the gas ran out, "I decided to make a campfire, whatever I needed to eat like a normal human being. My body needed it and I couldn't keep ignoring it," Braslavski said.
The smoke from the cooking alerted the Gazans around him, and soon hundreds of them surrounded the house. They broke in, found him hiding under the bed, and dragged him out. "They caught me and began beating the life out of me. I couldn’t walk or stand for maybe two weeks after that," he said.
A minute before the Gazans killed Braslavski, the man who was meant to guard Rom returned and removed the people.
After this incident, Braslavski said that while he was alone, his thoughts started to kill him. "You can’t breathe from overthinking. I got into a loop in my mind for at least half an hour, and I started to cry. I wanted to bury my head in the sand. You start to think maybe your father is dead because he had some health issues and he’s old." His captors would tell him his father, mother, and brother were dead.
"One time, I lost control of my mind in the middle of one of the loops. I couldn’t hold myself anymore, I grabbed a teacup, and said f*** it, f*** it. I was very angry; they didn’t bring me food at that moment. I remember wanting to get up and get a cup of water, and he (his captor) told me, 'Sit down.' Don’t get up, don't move. I grabbed the tea cup, and I hit my head with the tea cup." Braslavski said he hit himself with the teacup twice and broke it on his head from the frustration and rage. He lost his consciousness a bit from this, and some blood.
After this incident, the terrorists beat him and gave him less food. They said he would no longer receive any hot drinks and would only give him half a pita a day. They also made him stand up more.
Humanitarian aid and staying with Alexander Troufanov
"When the humanitarian aid entered Gaza, the terrorists holding us became very happy. They started to eat as if they were in a restaurant, with meat and lots of variety," Braslavski detailed and added that he "didn't receive more food when the aid came." "I thought them: I'm smelly, I haven't showered, and I'm not eating, while they have tons of food coming in. Why are they keeping me hungry while eating like that? The smells of food made my stomach turn. I could smell the meat, the coffee, the sweetness of tea, and the rice with milk that they were cooking."
But a blessing came in the form of former hostage Alexander Sasha Troufanov, whom he describes as "the greatest gift during captivity."
"We started talking while whispering, afraid of what would happen to us. But little by little I started to open up, to tell him about my life, about my fears, and how I was feeling," he recounted. "He also talked, from morning till midnight. He told me that he had been shot in the leg, and other stories that today seem like hallucinations. But when I was with him, I felt happy."
This happiness was short-lived, as reality struck him again only 48 hours later. Citing the IDF's entry into Rafah in May 2024, the terrorist separated them. "I was certain that we would stick together; he was my anchor, and I felt safe with Sasha," Braslavski said.
After that point, he remained alone.
Braslavski said that since his release, he is scared to leave the hospital. "The hospital is like a protective bubble; everyone is taking care of me and asking me how I am. I am scared that if I leave, I might lose my mind."
"I don't believe that this is real, that I am here," Braslavski said."It is important for me to share this story so that people will know what suffering I experienced there. I met with satan."
Read the entire story here.
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