Freed Israeli hostage Yeviatar David, who was forced to dig his own grave, ‘is back to his old self’, father says

The father of a freed Israeli hostage who was forced to dig his own grave in a Gaza tunnel by Hamas has told the BBC his son’s health is “improving every day”.

Avishai David was speaking after his 24-year-old son Eviathar David and two other freed hostages – Guy Gilboa Dalal and Eitan More – were discharged from hospital to a hero’s welcome at their homes on Sunday.

“I can’t explain how happy it makes me to see him back to his old self,” the father added.

In August, two months before Eviatar’s release, Hamas had released a video showing him exhausted in a narrow concrete tunnel – a move that drew condemnation from Israel and many Western leaders.

Avishai David told the BBC he was happy to see how “his son’s vitality is improving every day, his color is coming back (to his face), his cheeks are getting fuller”.

“Thank God he made it and is strong.

The father said he suffered for months knowing his son was only “80km away… and I can’t help him”.

“It ruined me,” he said, adding that he “couldn’t sleep, eat, drink properly.”

in August Eviatar’s brother Eli told the BBC that the Hamas video was “a new form of cruelty”.

“He’s a human skeleton. He’s been starved to the point where he could die at any moment, and he’s suffering a lot,” Eli said at the time.

In the footage itself, Evyatar shares: “I haven’t eaten for days… I barely drink water.” He was seen digging what he said would be his own grave.

On Sunday, jubilant crowds – including many friends and neighbors – greeted Eviatar David as he returned to his hometown of Kfar Saba in central Israel.

Dr Michal Steinman, director of the Rabin Medical Center where the three freed hostages were treated, told the BBC their bodies still bore the scars of “this horrific captivity”.

“We can see their blood work … and we’ve also heard their stories … they’re not lying. You can see the scars of that metabolic trauma. Their skin tells their story. You can see the scars and the wounds.”

But Dr Steinman added that the hostages “came back stronger than they were”.

Eviatar was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

He and 19 other living hostages were released by Hamas as part of the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire deal earlier this month.

Hamas also transferred 15 of the 28 hostages who died. Thirteen were Israeli, one was Nepalese and the other was Thai.

In return, Israel released 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 Gaza detainees and returned 15 Palestinian bodies for every Israeli hostage’s remains.

IS launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the October 7, 2023 attack in which Hamas-led gunmen killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 others hostage.

More than 68,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.