‘A divine miracle’ - Former Israeli hostage Rom Braslavski recounts torture, trauma and survival before Italy’s leaders

Former Israeli hostage Rom Braslavski spoke on Sunday in Rome to a large audience about his traumatic two years in Hamas captivity in Gaza.

The 22-year-old was invited to speak at the "Atreju" conference of the Fratelli D'Italia, the political party led by Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni. Braslavski was interviewed on stage by Italian-Jewish journalist Maurizio Molinari and under the auspices of Senator Esther Meili, granddaughter of a Jewish Holocaust survivor. 

“I’m moved to be here in Italy," Braslavski told the audience. "I wanted to speak for a moment about the hostages’ symbol I wear. When I asked an Italian man I met outside what it meant, he said he had no idea. It is very sad that people around the world don’t understand what this pin means. It’s an Israeli symbol – a symbol of unity, a symbol of equality, but also a symbol of blood, of murder, of pain and of the horrific trauma called October 7." 

Braslavski recalled the horror that he experienced as a hostage in Hamas-ruled Gaza. 

“After I was taken by Hamas terrorists, I saw the horrors with my own eyes. I saw one thing: massacre. I saw young, beautiful women thrown to the ground, riddled with bullets, their clothes torn, rivers of blood on the road, while I heard shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’ all around. I saw – in a garbage bin – a large number of bodies of women, adults, children, all drenched in blood. They were murdered simply because they were Israelis, because they were Jews,” he said. 

The former hostage revealed that the terrorists tortured him daily during his two years of captivity in Gaza. 

“During my captivity, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad that held me tortured me psychologically every single day," he recalled.

"They abused my psyche and left me scarred physically and mentally. I am dealing with these scars now – psychiatrically. I know hostages who returned and cannot speak, cannot communicate. They lost their sense of justice. This captivity is unfit for any living being, certainly not for a human,” he explained. 

Braslavski called on the Italian audience to stand up for peace and justice. 

“I ask you – dear people – please continue the important work you are doing for justice and peace. This is something I believed in before October 7,” he urged. 

“I went to work as a security guard at a party and look what happened to me, my life was destroyed. The October 7 massacre was completely unjustifiable. A massacre like this is not human,” he added.

The former hostage thanked the Italian prime minister and the conference organizers for inviting him to Italy. 

“Until two months ago I was underground in Gaza, 40 meters underground. Clothes torn, after not showering for over a month, not eating for days. And look at me today; the wheel has turned. It’s a divine miracle," he said. 

Last month, Braslavski revealed that he was sexually assaulted by his captors in Gaza. 

“It was sexual violence – and its main purpose was to humiliate me,” he explained. “The goal was to crush my dignity. And that’s exactly what [they] did. It’s hard for me to talk about that part specifically. I don’t like to talk about it. It’s hard. It was the most horrific thing."

“It’s something even the Nazis didn’t do. During Hitler’s time, they wouldn’t have done things like this,” Braslavski said.