Freed hostage Rom Braslavski was in Italy on Sunday, at the invitation of the country’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, addressing the annual “Atreju” conference of the Italian premier’s party, the right-wing Fratelli D’Italia, in Rome.
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. 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 saw with my own eyes the horrors, I saw one thing – a massacre. I saw young, beautiful women thrown onto the ground, riddled with bullets, their clothes torn and rivers of blood in the street, amid shouts of ‘Allahu akbar,’ which you could hear from every direction,” he said.
“I saw, in a big garbage can, a great quantity of corpses – women, elderly, children. Covered in blood. Massacred just because they were Israelis, Jews,” Braslavski recalled.
The hostage, who spoke in Hebrew with an Italian interpreter, was interviewed onstage by Ester Mieli, a Brothers of Italy senator who formerly served as spokeswoman for the Italian Jewish community and is the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor.
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“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 repeatedly sexually assaulted and tortured him.
Ex-hostage Rom Braslavski speaks to Channel 13’s “Hazinor” program in an undated interview broadcast on November 6, 2025. (Screenshot, Channel 13)
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.”
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.
Invited by Meloni’s party, despite Italy’s anti-Israel attitudes
Braslavski was warmly received by the FDI party crowd and was met with an ovation after he spoke.
Meloni, one of Israel’s closest European allies, staked out a generally pro-Israel position for most of the war, insisting on Israel’s right to self-defense and declining to join the international campaign to recognize Palestinian statehood amid the war.
In October, however – days before the ceasefire was reached that secured the freedom of the last 20 living hostages in Gaza, including Braslavski — she accused Israel of “violating humanitarian norms, causing a massacre among civilians” in its campaign against Hamas, and said she would support EU sanctions against Israel.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni waits for Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov at Palazzo Chigi prior to their meeting in Rome on December 1, 2025. (Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP)
Her remarks, delivered in a speech at the United Nations, came amid intense pressure in Italy to take a more antagonistic stance toward Israel, pressure that has continued despite the US-brokered ceasefire.
A general strike last month, promoted by far-left unions, largely focused on the government’s purported support for Israel’s campaign. And a September poll found that almost 74 percent of Italians – including 64% of FDI voters – believe Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians, and 59% of Italians – including 40% of FDI voters – want Italy to cut ties with Israel.
The furor directed at Israel has worried the country’s small Jewish community, which — like Jewish communities around the world — has experienced a surge in antisemitic attacks since October 7. Strikingly, a separate September poll found that around 15% of Italians consider physical attacks on Jews to be “entirely or fairly justifiable.”
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