TEL AVIV—Emaciated and pale, Evyatar David, a 24-year-old Israeli hostage, was filmed by his Hamas captors digging his own grave in a cramped underground tunnel, one of a series of videos that Palestinian militants have released in recent days of Israeli hostages.

David and another hostage, 21-year-old Rom Braslavski, also shown emaciated and weak, beg to be freed in the videos, warning that their deaths are near. They criticize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for ignoring their plight.

The U.S.-designated terrorist group released the videos as talks with Israel for a temporary cease-fire broke down last week, and as international pressure rises on Israel to end the war. Gaza has been gripped by a hunger crisis that has spurred several Western allies, including the U.K. and France, to pledge to recognize a Palestinian state.

The videos have shocked and enraged Israelis. Stills from the video of David ran on every front page and are fueling calls for the government to strike a deal with Hamas for the release of all the remaining hostages.

Ofir Braslavski , father of Rom Braslavski, speaking Saturday night at a rally in Tel Aviv for the hostages, asked Netanyahu to “end the war and bring everyone here.”

“Two days ago, I saw my son—and I didn’t recognize him. My Rom is hungry for bread, thirsty for water, sick, physically broken and mentally shattered,” Braslavski said. “I address you, Mr. Prime Minister: Enough!”

Over the past 22 months, Gazan militant groups have often published videos of Israeli hostages demanding an end to the war. Israeli officials have called it psychological terrorism.

By releasing videos of starving hostages, Hamas is capitalizing on the current international furor over Israel’s role in creating the humanitarian crisis inside Gaza, while also playing on growing anger inside Israel over the continued suffering of the Israeli hostages, said Michael Milshtein, a former head of Palestinian affairs for Israeli military intelligence.

“It’s part of a very calculated policy,” said Milshtein.

Hamas and other Gazan militants took around 250 people hostage in their Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel that left 1,200 people dead and sparked the current war in Gaza. Both David and Braslavski were taken captive from the Nova music festival , where hundreds were killed by Palestinian militants in one of the deadliest scenes of the attacks. Israeli officials believe that about 20 male hostages are still alive and that an additional 30 bodies are being held by militant groups.

Following a meeting between Netanyahu and U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Thursday, Israeli officials said they are now considering negotiating a single comprehensive deal to end the war in Gaza, disarm Hamas, demilitarize Gaza and free all hostages, according to an Israeli official. This would represent a turnaround from Israel’s previous negotiating stance that insisted on only temporary deals because it wasn’t ready to end the war.

Hamas on Saturday said that it would reject Israel’s demand to disarm until the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“We will never relinquish this right until all our national rights are restored, foremost among them the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” the group said.

The first video came on Thursday, released by Hamas ally Islamic Jihad, showing a bony Braslavski whimpering as he said he would die of hunger soon if not released. He said he was unable to stand on his own, and the video included footage of him writhing in pain on a mattress on the floor.

On Friday, Hamas released a teaser of the full video of David, showing his wasting frame in a narrow tunnel interspersed with videos of emaciated children that the group said were in Gaza. “They eat what we eat and drink what we drink,” the video states, comparing the hostages with hungry Gazans.

On Saturday, Hamas released the full video of David. It shows him writing on a calendar pinned to the cement tunnel wall on which he records what he eats daily. Most days are either beans, lentils, or no food at all. The video also shows David struggling to hold a shovel as he digs a hole into the sandy tunnel.

“This is the grave I may be buried in,” he says as he continues digging. “Time is running out.”

The video ends with a graphic of clocks ticking and the words in Hebrew, Arabic and English: “Only a cease-fire can bring them back alive. Time is running out.”

Hamas has pinned the starvation of its captives on Israel.

Israelis say despite the food shortage gripping Gaza, Hamas operatives have enough food for themselves and are intentionally starving the hostages. Two former hostages who were held in the same tunnel as David said that they could often smell their captors eating food through an iron door behind where the video was shot.

“Hamas is using Evyatar in one of the most horrific and calculated campaigns of cruelty imaginable—a live hunger experiment,” said his brother Ilay David at the hostage rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. “They are starving him deliberately, systematically, using his agonizing suffering as a twisted tool for their depraved propaganda.”