Former Israeli hostage Rom Braslavski appeared at a conference in Italy.
By Rachel Avraham
Various Israeli media outlets reported that former hostage Rom Braslavski appeared on Sunday at a conference of the “Brothers of Italy,” the ruling party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. According to the reports, Braslavski was received with applause by the audience and was interviewed on stage by Jewish-Italian journalist Maurizio Molinari.
According to the Times of Israel, Braslavski, now 22, was working as a security guard at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists kidnapped him to Gaza. The Times of Israel reported that he told the audience about his experience of the massacres that day and of the conditions in which he was held for two years of subsequent captivity, until his release on October 5, 2025, as part of a US-brokered ceasefire deal.
“I am excited to be here in Italy. I wanted to speak for a moment about the hostage pin that I am wearing: when I approached an Italian citizen I met outside and asked him if he knew what it was, he said he had no idea. It is very sad that people around the world don’t know the meaning of this pin. It is an Israeli symbol, a symbol of unity. A symbol of equality, but also a symbol of blood, of murder, of pain, and of the terrible trauma called October 7,” Rom began, Arutz Sheva reported.
“On that October 7, when I was brutally kidnapped by terrorists from Gaza – after being taken captive, I saw with my own eyes the horrors,” he noted. “I saw one thing: massacre. I saw young and beautiful women thrown to the ground, riddled with bullets, their clothes torn, rivers of blood on the road, while cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ were heard everywhere. I saw inside a large garbage container a huge number of bodies – women, elderly, children. Covered in blood. Slaughtered only because they were Israelis and Jews.”
According to the Times of Israel, he stated: “Over the course of my captivity, [the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group] that held me murdered me, mentally, throughout each day. They abused me mentally, and left me scarred everywhere mentally and physically,” related Braslasvski, who said last month that his captors respectively sexually abused him and tortured him. Earlier, he said in an interview: “They stripped me completely — underwear and all. They tied me up naked, I was torn, dead, without food. This was sexual violence. They had one objective, to humiliate me.”
At the event, he added: “I met hostages who returned who aren’t able to speak, to connect. They lost their sense of justice. This captivity isn’t fit for animals, certainly not for a human being. And so I ask of you, dear people, to continue this good work for the sake of justice and peace, something I believed in before October 7.”
According to the Times of Israel, the freed hostage closed his remarks by noting: “Until two months ago, I was in Gaza, 40 meters underground. Wearing torn clothes, after not showering for at least a month, not eating for days at a time. And look how I’m dressed now,” he said, noting his suit, and crediting God for the “miracle” of his freedom.
Photo from i24NEWS English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSxFoLVIxew
