Evyatar David, a former Hamas hostage, arrives home in Kfar Saba, central Israel, after being discharged from the hospital on October 26, 2025. LUCIEN LUNG/RIVA PRESS FOR LE MONDE
With Israeli flags in their hands or draped over their shoulders, dozens of people clung to a slowly moving minibus in a residential street of Kfar Saba, in central Israel. On Sunday, October 26, the excited crowd celebrated the return of Evyatar David, 25, who was freed by Hamas on October 13 after 737 days of captivity in the Gaza Strip. The young man with rectangular glasses greeted the crowd with a smile amid shouts of joy and deafening pop music, before slipping, without a word, into his building adorned with a banner reading: "Evyatar, how wonderful to have you home."
Outside the building's entrance, Ari (his name has been changed at his request) came to greet one of his closest friends, with whom he had attended the Tribe of Nova festival on October 7, 2023, before his abduction. The 24-year-old knew little about his friend's past two years. Like the rest of the country, he had been struck by the Hamas propaganda video broadcast in August, which showed an emaciated David in a tunnel in the enclave, digging his own grave. "Since his release, he has said almost nothing about his daily life in Gaza."
