The video came a day after Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Hamas-aligned terrorist group, published footage of hostage Rom Braslavski. Also visibly starved, Braslavski said he is no longer able to walk or stand. “I don’t have any more food, or water, before they would give me a little bit, today there is nothing,” he said. “I am at death’s door, and I’m sure that all the other [hostages] are in the same mental state.” PIJ claims to have lost contact with Braslavski’s captors after the video was filmed.
Tens of thousands of protesters convened in Tel Aviv on Saturday for weekly demonstrations calling for an end to the conflict and the release of hostages. Among the demonstrators were family members of David, including his brother Ilay, who in a speech accused Hamas of “using Evyatar in one of the most horrific and calculated campaigns of cruelty imaginable—a live hunger experiment,” adding that the terrorist captors were “starving him deliberately, systematically, using his agonizing suffering as a twisted tool for their depraved propaganda.”
The protests came amid a U.S.-led push for an “all or nothing” deal in Gaza. Such an agreement would, in theory, end the war permanently and bring all 50 hostages home at once, a move away from the phased releases of past temporary truces. “President Trump now believes that everybody ought to come home at once—no piecemeal deals. That doesn’t work,” White House special envoy Steve Witkoff told hostage families on Saturday, according to a report by Axios. Witkoff went on to add that Hamas must disarm as part of any future agreement.
For many Israelis, such an arrangement would be the ideal outcome. It would put an end to a 22-month war while also securing the release of hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses an immediate threat to Israel. But Hamas on Saturday rejected Witkoff’s premise that it had “expressed its willingness” to lay down its arms, saying that it would not yield its “resistance and its weapons” unless a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital is established. And the group may have a vested interest in continuing the war until that happens.
Late last month, French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state before the United Nations General Assembly in September, a move that would add France to a list of more than 140 countries worldwide that formally recognize an independent Palestine. In a public letter to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, whose faction runs the West Bank, Macron called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Israeli hostages, and the delivery of more humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer followed suit last week, stating that the United Kingdom would support the creation of a Palestinian state unless Israel “takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire, and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace.” Critics have argued that Starmer’s ultimatum gives Hamas every reason to negotiate in bad faith, if the end result of the war’s continuation is statehood. Still, Canada joined the other major Western powers in announcing plans to recognize a Palestinian state the next day, with Prime Minister Mark Carney calling on Abbas’ PA to commit to elections and other democratic reforms.
Both the Trump administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the announcements, arguing that planned recognition of a state would reward terrorism. And indeed, Hamas has already begun to take credit for furthering the Palestinian cause. “The fruits of October 7 are what caused the entire world to open its eyes to the Palestinian issue—and they are moving toward it with force. That is, that the Palestinian people are a people who deserve a country,” Hamas Political Bureau Chief Ghazi Hamad said in an interview with Al Jazeera that aired Saturday. “Why are all the countries recognizing a Palestinian state today? Before October 7, did any country dare recognize a Palestinian state?”
And Hamas remains clear on what such a state should entail: the destruction of Israel. In the same interview, Hamad urged the people of Gaza to “be patient,” because “the gradual countdown to Israel’s collapse has begun.”
Meanwhile, Slovenia on Thursday became the first European country to block the purchase and sale of weapons to Israel, citing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. “In such circumstances, it is the duty of every responsible state to act, even if this means taking a step ahead of others,” Prime Minister Robert Golob’s office said in a statement. The move was largely symbolic, however, as the country doesn’t currently have any arms deals with Israel.
Far more concerning, from Israel’s perspective, is the potential breakdown in its relationship with the United States. In a Gallup poll conducted between July 7 and 21, American support for Israel’s military action in Gaza fell to 32 percent—its lowest point since the conflict began in late 2023. U.S. backing for Israel falls sharply along partisan lines, with 71 percent of Republican respondents saying they approved of Israel’s military actions and just 8 percent of Democrats saying the same.
But there are some signs of cracking support for Israel even from within Trump’s base, particularly among very vocal, very online right-wing voices. The Nelk Boys, a group of Canadian and American Trump-friendly social media influencers, received a wave of backlash after hosting Netanyahu on their “Full Send” podcast last month, with the podcast’s YouTube channel losing more than 10,000 subscribers in a single day after the interview aired. Meanwhile, polarizing figures like Tucker Carlson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have used their large platforms to accuse Israel of committing war crimes, with Greene becoming the first Republican in Congress to accuse the Jewish state of genocide last week.
“My people are starting to hate Israel,” Trump recently told a Jewish donor, according to a report by Financial Times.
Israel’s international standing may continue to worsen as the war drags on, a reality of which Hamas is acutely aware as it continues to double down on maximalist demands in ceasefire negotiations. “Hamas didn’t agree to a truce even when international pressure was mounting against it in recent weeks,” Lazar Berman, a Jerusalem-based analyst and diplomatic correspondent, wrote in the Times of Israel. “It certainly won’t now as Israel takes more blows with each passing day.”
“And though the countries announcing plans to recognize a Palestinian state are convinced they are strengthening the Palestinian Authority, Hamas has a much better case to make now to the Palestinian street that, despite the costs, only violence against Israel can lead to progress on statehood, and ultimately Israel’s destruction,” he added. “Many could well treat the October 7 slaughter as Palestine’s independence day.”
