Former captive Rom Braslavski reunites with IDF spokesman who became his lifeline in Gaza

Avichai Adraee’s broadcasts weren’t just information; they were a reminder that someone outside was fighting, that Israel hadn’t stopped, and that the hostages hadn’t been forgotten.

By Gila Isaacson, Kikar Hashabbat via JFeed

Rom Braslavski was seized from a music festival on October 7. He was held in Gaza for months, in Deir al-Balah, in a cramped room with another captive, listening to the sounds of a war he couldn’t see.

He heard one voice consistently. Lieutenant Colonel Avichai Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, broadcasting on Al Jazeera.

Day after day. Through the walls of his captor’s house. Through a radio, no one was supposed to let him hear.

On Sunday, Braslavski posted a photograph of three people smiling. In the photo: he, a fellow hostage survivor named Sasha Trofanov, and Adraee. No elaborate caption. Just one story.

The story is more than that.

Braslavski wrote: “In a parallel world, in normal life, there would be no connection between us. Sasha, a Russian from a kibbutz in the south. Avichai Adraee, an officer with rank on his shoulder. Me, a simple soldier and security guard at the party.”

Then October 7 changed everything. Braslavski was dragged into Gaza. The worlds stopped being parallel.

“And the man who did me so much good (I believe Sasha too) was the giant but small man in the photo, Avichai Adraee.”

For most Israelis, Adraee is the familiar voice in evacuation warnings and military statements directed at Gaza and Lebanon.

Braslavski knew him differently. He heard him every day. Every attack. Every update. Every threat to those holding him.

“You probably don’t know him or haven’t heard him, because he speaks Arabic,” Braslavski wrote. “But I heard him every day. I felt him. Avichai was the man who gave me hope in a place so dark.”

The broadcasts weren’t just information. They were a reminder that someone outside was fighting. That Israel hadn’t stopped. That the hostages hadn’t been forgotten.

When Adraee announced strikes, confirmed Israeli retaliation, and stated that the IDF would not stop until every hostage was free, Braslavski heard it. He listened to every word.

“Hearing his exact words in every speech to the Gazan and Lebanese public gave me pride,” Braslavski said.

“He was summing up attacks, threatening, presenting reality as it was. He was speaking Arabic from inside Israel and it reached all of Gaza. There’s not a Gazan fighter who doesn’t know Avichai Adraee. (Maybe I’m not a Gazan fighter, but I grew up on him too). The man was present from the beginning of the war to the end. He covered everything. And he said, the IDF will not surrender until every hostage is freed.”

After release. After months in captivity. After coming home. Braslavski was at Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael with Trofanov, the man he’d shared a cramped cell with in Rafah for two days, the only person who had been there with him in the dark.

“And after we were freed by open miracle, it turned out Sasha and I could sit at Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael,” Braslavski wrote.

“I was stunned, clinging to Sasha, looking at him with admiration. And then we met Avichai. Sasha suggested we go. I didn’t hesitate. Two hostages walking up to the IDF’s spokesman to the Arab world.”

The conversation was long. Deep. The kind of conversation that can only happen between people who have lived through what they lived through.

There was Arabic. There was the weight of shared understanding between a hostage survivor, a fellow hostage survivor, and the voice that had kept one of them alive.

“This is the best closing of the circle that I could possibly receive,” Braslavski said.

He closed the post simply: “Friends, I love you. Thank you for who you were for me in captivity and who you are for me today.”