Former hostage delivers gripping account of October 7 horrors

“Women, adults, children. Covered in blood. They were slaughtered only because they were Israelis and Jews.”

By World Israel News Staff

Former Hamas hostage Rom Breslavski delivered a gripping account of his abduction and captivity on Sunday at the Atreju conference in Italy, hosted by the ruling Brothers of Italy party.

Speaking on stage before an Italian audience, he opened with the scenes burned into his memory from October 7. “I saw young and beautiful women thrown to the ground, riddled by bullets, their clothes torn and rivers of blood on the road, while shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’ came from every direction,” he said.

He added that he later came across a large trash container filled with bodies. “Women, adults, children. Covered in blood. They were slaughtered only because they were Israelis and Jews.”

Breslavski, a 22-year-old security guard at the Nova music festival, spent hours rescuing wounded civilians and attempting to move bodies to prevent them from being dragged into Gaza. Survivors have described his bravery during the chaos.

At about 10 in the morning he managed to call his mother, trying to calm her by saying he was in a protected area and that the IDF was securing control. Not long afterward he was seized by terrorists and taken into the Strip, where he would be held for more than a year and a half under Islamic Jihad.

“During my captivity, Islamic Jihad murdered me mentally every single day,” he told the audience. He described how his captors tortured him and left him with both physical and psychological scars. “For two years of captivity they killed me physically and mentally every day, abused my soul and left deep scars. I know released hostages who lost their sense of justice and lost the ability to communicate.”

Videos released by the group over time revealed his severe weight loss, weakness and near total deprivation of food and water, at times surviving only on a few falafel balls or a single plate of rice. Breslavski also recalled attempts to pressure him into converting to Islam in exchange for food, something he rejected every time. He said he told them repeatedly that he was Jewish and would return or die as a Jew.

He spoke with a trembling voice about the inhumanity of what he endured and urged the crowd not to look away. “This captivity is not fit for animals, certainly not for a human being. I ask you, dear people, to continue working for justice and peace. The October 7 massacre had no justification. It was an act that was not human.”

He thanked Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for inviting him and expressed heartfelt gratitude to God. “Until two months ago I was inside Gaza, forty meters underground with torn clothes, after a month without a shower and days without food. And look at me today. The wheel has turned and that is a divine miracle.”

Breslavski’s appearance in Rome offered more than testimony. It was a reminder of the cruelty inflicted on innocent Israelis, the resilience of those who survived and the moral clarity demanded from the free world. His story stands as evidence of what Israel continues to confront and why its fight against terror remains just and necessary.

Atreju conferenceGiorgia MeloniRom BreslavskiRome