Braslavski, 19, was kidnapped from the Supernova Festival during the Hamas-led massacre of October 7, 2023, where he had worked as a security guard while serving his mandatory military service, a fact he concealed for months. During the first four months of his captivity, he posed as a 16-year-old selling shawarma at the festival.
A terrorist he described as a cyber expert from Palestinian Islamic Jihad later arrived with a laptop and headphones and began interrogating him. Fearing that his cover had been blown, Braslavski then revealed his identity.
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This screenshot from a video released on July 31 by Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad, shows Rom Braslavski being released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum (Hostages and Missing Families Forum/AFP via Getty Images)
For the next three months, Braslavski said he was kept in isolation with no daylight, describing the experience as so dark and lonely that he began banging his head against the wall.
At that point, he was forced to walk to a sprawling complex of about 20,000 tents near Nasser Hospital. Along the way he collapsed from hunger and exhaustion, was injected with an unknown substance and forced to move further.
Rom Braslavski and Mayor of Jerusalem Moshe Lion during the Jerusalem Winner Marathon. (Jerusalem Marathon/Arnon Bossani)
“I walked with no energy, breathing in air as if these were my last breaths, thinking this would be the last time I would see the light of day. I kept going.”
At the complex, Braslavski said tents were close together without any privacy, while vehicles destroyed by rockets had been converted into makeshift shelters. The camp included donkeys and camels, and people defecated in the open. He described the extreme heat that made it difficult to breathe.
Braslavski stayed in such a tent for four months. While the terrorist responsible instructed others not to abuse him, one of the four guards – a young man whose name he declined to share – ignored those orders.
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“He did everything he could to break me. Once he brought me food, spit in it and forced me to eat it. He humiliated me constantly. I had a small opening in the tent to breathe air, and he came over and closed it. When I told him I couldn’t breathe, he beat me and laughed with the others. He showed me videos of violence against our soldiers. He tied my hands and feet for no reason,” Braslavski said.
Although he was not supposed to be physically harmed for no reason, Braslavski said the guard routinely insulted him, threatened his family and forced him to perform humiliating acts until it became unbearable.
Rom Braslavski was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023. (The Hostages and Missing Families Forum)
“He started running to get his Kalashnikov, and I realized that I could either keep going or put a bullet in his head. I kept hitting him with all my strength. He became weak. I was weak too, but my body and mind disconnected from everything, and I kept going,” Braslavski said.
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Reef Peretz, chairman of the Nova Foundation, looks at the names and faces of people who died during the Nova festival at “The Nova Music Festival Exhibition October 7 06:29 AM, The Moment Music Stood Still” on April 18, 2024 in New York City. (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images for the Nova Music Festival exhibition)
After three to four minutes, another terrorist intervened and the guard who had attacked Braslavski was taken to a hospital.
“The day that followed was the second darkest of my life, after October 7. It is etched in my memory, my soul and my body. The main terrorist decided to respond harshly to what I did, and from there I fell into a cycle of constant abuse,” he said.
Braslavski said he was then allowed to sleep for no more than an hour and a half a day at short intervals.
“They beat me with everything they had at hand. I suffered severe torture, slavery and sexual abuse. Everything they could do to me, they did. My body is still covered in scars. After four months of torture, I was clinically dead, rolled my eyes and fainted. They decided to stop the violence and brought doctors to treat me with injections and fed me again,” he added.
Rom Braslavski and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (Office of the Prime Minister of Italy)
During Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which began in May 2025 with the aim of defeating Hamas and securing the return of hostages under military pressure, Braslavski said the terrorist overseeing his guards was injured and lost a family member, triggering a new cycle of torture and starvation.
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With each step forward in negotiations for a deal, Braslavski said his condition gradually improved until he was released in October 2025 after 738 days in captivity.
What keeps him going as a free man, he said, is his faith.
“I have a dark past, but I need to have a bright future. I want to forget what happened, even if I can’t. God gave me my life back as a gift – not once, but twice. I need to at least do the minimum, which is to live, rehabilitate myself and put all this behind me,” he said.
