An Israeli man held captive and sexually assaulted by Palestinian terrorists has revealed more details of the horrific torture he suffered during two years of hell in Gaza.
Rom Braslavski, 21, was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Islamic Jihad terror group on October 7 — where, he says, he was repeatedly sexually violated and brutally beaten with a donkey whip.
On Wednesday, the Daily Mail exclusively revealed how Mr Braslavski told of the sexual abuse he endured.
After the full show on Israel’s Channel 13 Hazinor programme aired on Thursday night, we can reveal more details of his time in captivity and how he fears losing his mind and breaking down.
As a hostage, Mr Braslavski was made to dance, tortured for 20-minutes seven times a day, and blindfolded while stones were inserted into his ears with nails — leaving him unable to see or hear for weeks.
‘I came back from a meeting with the devil,’ he said in the televised interview, recounting his trauma at the hands of his captors.
His voice trembled as he described how they lied to him that his father was dead and that they saw his burial on Israeli television, ate food in front of him while he starved, and how the torture escalated when he refused to convert to Islam.
‘Listen, if you convert to Islam, I’ll bring you plenty of food, you’ll live with us,’ one of the captors told him, to which Mr Braslavski replied: ‘I was born a Jew, I’ll die a Jew.’
Rom Braslavski, 21, was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Islamic Jihad terror group on October 7 — where, he says, he was repeatedly sexually violated and brutally beaten with a donkey whip
Mr Braslavski was freed last month amid a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. He is pictured here draped in the Israeli flag as he greeted members of the IDF following his release on October 13
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 13, he details how he was starved, sexually abused by his captors, and tortured for 20-minutes seven times a day
Mr Braslavski, who was working as a security guard at the Nova music festival, was violently abducted when trying to save an injured person.
He was held captive for 738 days in brutal conditions and was released last month as part of a US-brokered ceasefire deal that saw all living hostages freed.
Throughout his captivity, the 21-year-old was told that if he converted, his suffering would cease.
‘Don’t worry, no one will lay a hand on you. Come, convert — join the true faith, Islam, Muhammad,’ his captors said.
But when Mr Braslavski refused, the torture only intensified: his water was reduced to half a litre, toilet breaks were just three times in 24 hours, and his food was significantly cut down.
One day, his captor came to him with a smile, saying: ‘Look what I brought you.’
The terrorist delivered stones, that were forced into Mr Braslavski’s ears with a nail and remained there for weeks, making him effectively deaf.
He was also blindfolded during this time — cutting him off completely from the world.
‘I am screaming and he doesn’t care, he just keeps putting it in deeper,’ Mr Braslavski said, describing the agony of the stones being inserted into his ears.
Mr Braslavski broke down in his first TV interview following his release from captivity in Gaza
Mr Braslavski was working as security at the festival before he was captured. Pictured: Braslavski before he was taken hostage into Gaza
‘The torture went on — day after day, hour after hour,’ Mr Braslavski said. ‘It just got worse and worse. I was beaten maybe seven rounds a day, each round about twenty minutes.’
He described how he tried to lose consciousness and collapse, ‘but they don’t let you pass out either — they grab you’.
‘After the punches, it turned into punches with that whip [the one they used for their donkeys], each lash felt like a burn. It left me with scars — I still have those scars today. They haven’t faded from my body.’
After the beating sessions — which often involved three men — Mr Braslavski described how he would be left shattered and bleeding, with every bone in his body hurting.
He also experienced severe weight loss from starvation, estimating his weight to be around 53 kilograms in captivity.
Even in sleep, there was no respite. At dawn, the beatings resumed with a cruel ritual:
‘Then, six in the morning — flashlights. “Yalla, yalla, yalla, yalla!” They came in with two radios, turned on loud Arabic party music, shouting: “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! What a great day! What a happy day!”.’
On waking up, he was beaten again, and the sadistic ritual would repeat at noon with music again blasting in his ears, only to indicate another battering.
Sometimes, his captors would demand that he performed for their entertainment. ‘Do a dance with your hands. Dance and laugh,’ they would say.
‘And I do this — I have no strength,’ Mr Braslavski said. ‘I’m so exhausted. It hurts to move my arm. My bones ache. The second round already hurts unbearably.’
‘They turn up the radios — more party music — and another round of beatings. You realise you’re in a loop. You start to doubt if you’ll survive, if you’ll ever get out alive,’ he said.
‘They beat me with everything they had. They smashed a radio over my head. They broke a big stick on me. The whip itself bent completely — it was metal. They bent metal from how hard they were hitting.’
The memory of pain is still vivid for Mr Braslavski as he begins his journey to recovery.
‘I remember, it hurt so much. When they said “Lie down,” one sat on my knees, another took the whip and lashed the soles of my feet — lash after lash, maybe forty in a row. Then my whole foot was swollen, red and blue.
‘And he tells me: “Stay standing. Stand on your feet.” It’s like being burned alive. You feel fire.’
Mr Braslavski recalled how the captors were delighted at aid pouring in to the Gaza Strip and how when they starved him, they would eat in front of him to torment him
Released Israeli hostage, Rom Braslavski, held in Gaza since the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, is reunited with loved ones after being released
Mr Braslavski recalled how the captors were delighted at aid pouring in to the Gaza Strip and how when they starved him, they would eat in front of him to torment him.
‘The jihadists were thrilled — the humanitarian aid had opened up for them, they started eating,’ he said, describing the enormous amounts of tea and meat that would be delivered, ‘enough to open a restaurant’.
‘They were happy with their food — one bought himself a tent, another bought plastic for his tent, this one bought fabric, another bought shoes.
‘And me — my life didn’t change. Whether there’s aid or not — my life stays the same. Filthy, no shower, no food.’
Mr Braslavski recalled the tantalising scent of meat, coffee and sweet tea, torturing his senses everyday.
He insisted that the abuse he experienced at the hands of his captors was rooted in hatred for his identity as a Jew.
‘They tortured me for one reason: because I’m Jewish. That’s why I got everything I got.
‘Not [Itamar] Ben Gvir, not [Benjamin] Netanyahu, nothing else. They abused me because I’m Jewish, that’s it,’ he said.
Rom Braslavski walks off a helicopter at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025
After Palestinian Islamic Jihad released a propaganda film showing Mr Braslavski unable to stand and tortured in August, he said he still can’t bear to watch it.
‘Until now, today, I haven’t watched this video. I can’t. Every time it pops up on Facebook, I fast forward it,’ he said.
‘I said absolute lies there, and I remember myself between takes. They do a take and stop, and he hits me with a fist. He tells me: “Be more serious, talk about Netanyahu, badmouth Bibi, badmouth Ben Gvir”.’
When he didn’t perform for the camera like they asked, he was threatened with more torture. ‘Do you want me to return the stones and the blindfold?’ his captors asked, before demanding that he ‘cry’.
At one point, Mr Braslavski was in so much pain that he pleaded with his captors to finally kill him.
‘My whole body hurt, and I told them: “Take the falafel ball you give me during the day, take it and let me die of hunger, just leave me alone. Just stop hitting me”.’
He even confronted one of his captors, telling him that God bears witness to the torture and that his horrendous abuse won’t go unpunished.
This only sparked a furious reaction. ‘You want to teach me about God? My faith is ten times stronger than yours,’ the terrorist said.
He then returned the dreaded stones and blindfold, and called his brother Muhammad, and the beating started again.
Now, having survived meeting the ‘devil,’ Mr Braslavski sees it as his ‘duty’ to tell the world what he suffered, ‘so they can grasp what a nightmare is’.
Rom Braslavski smiles making a heart sign from a minibus at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025
After two years in captivity, the trauma was not only physical, but mental. Even in freedom, Mr Braslavski struggles to reconnect with the world.
‘I can’t believe this is real,’ he said.
While female hostages such as Amit Soussana and Ilana Gritzewsky have bravely spoken of sexual assault in captivity, Mr Braslavski’s testimony is the first by a male survivor to publicly describe such abuse.
‘They stripped me of all my clothes — underwear, everything. They tied me up from my… while I was completely naked. I was torn apart, dying, with no food,’ he said.
‘I prayed to God, “Please, save me, get me out of this already.” And you just say to yourself, “What the f***?”.’
His testimony marks a harrowing new chapter in the accounts emerging from freed hostages, exposing the scale of the abuse inflicted by Palestinian terrorists.
‘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.’
When asked by Channel 13 reporter Roni Aviram if more assaults took place, Mr Braslavski confirmed they had.
‘Yes. 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,’ he said.
‘It’s something even the Nazis didn’t do. During Hitler’s time, they wouldn’t have done things like this. You just pray for it to stop. And while I was there — every day, every beating — I’d say to myself, “I survived another day in hell. Tomorrow morning, I’ll wake up to another hell. And another. And another. It doesn’t end”.’
Last month, Mr Braslavski was pictured draped in the Israeli flag as he greeted members of the IDF upon his release.
Nearly four million shekels (£935,000) has been raised on a crowdfund for his rehabilitation in Israel.
The war began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, when militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 captives.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign killed nearly 69,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count.
