Former Israeli hostage Rom Braslavski addressed a packed hall Sunday at the Atreju conference of Brothers of Italy, the ruling party led by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The 22‑year‑old Israeli was greeted with applause as he spoke on stage in an interview led by Italian‑Jewish journalist Maurizio Molinari, under the auspices of Senator Esther Meili, herself the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor.
“I’m moved to be here in Italy," Braslavski said. "I wanted to speak for a moment about the hostages’ symbol I wear. When I asked an Italian man I met outside what it meant, he said he had no idea. It is very sad that people around the world don’t understand what this pin means. It’s an Israeli symbol — a symbol of unity, a symbol of equality, but also a symbol of blood, of murder, of pain and of the horrific trauma called October 7.”
Former hostage Rom Braslavskis was welcomed to the stage at the Atreju conference in Italy
(Video: Broadcasts of the Italian ruling party conference)
Describing the events of October 7, when he was kidnapped, Braslavski continued: “After I was taken by Hamas terrorists, I saw the horrors with my own eyes. I saw one thing: massacre. I saw young, beautiful women thrown to the ground, riddled with bullets, their clothes torn, rivers of blood on the road, while I heard shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’ all around. I saw — in a garbage bin — a large number of bodies of women, adults, children, all drenched in blood. They were murdered simply because they were Israelis, because they were Jews.”
“During my captivity, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad that held me tortured me psychologically every single day," he added. "They abused my psyche and left me scarred physically and mentally. I am dealing with these scars now — psychiatrically. I know hostages who returned and cannot speak, cannot communicate. They lost their sense of justice. This captivity is unfit for any living being, certainly not for a human.”
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Former hostage Rom Braslavski is welcomed to the stage at the Atreju conference in Italy
Braslavski implored the audience: “I ask you — dear people — please continue the important work you are doing for justice and peace. This is something I believed in before October 7.” He added: “I went to work as a security guard at a party and look what happened to me, my life was destroyed. The October 7 massacre was completely unjustifiable. A massacre like this is not human.”
He thanked Meloni and the conference organizers. “Until two months ago I was underground in Gaza, 40 meters underground. Clothes torn, after not showering for over a month, not eating for days. And look at me today; the wheel has turned. It’s a divine miracle," he said.
Braslavski has previously revealed that, during the 738 days of his captivity, he was subjected to horrific sexual assault. “They stripped me completely — underwear and all. They tied me up naked, I was torn, dead, without food,” he said in a powerful interview aired earlier. “This was sexual violence. They had one objective, to humiliate me.”
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Braslavski thanked Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
(Photo: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/File/Reuters Photo)
When asked whether there were other incidents, he replied quietly: “Yes. It’s hard for me to talk about that part. I don’t like talking about it. It was the most horrific thing. Something even the Nazis would not have done. In Hitler’s time they didn’t do things like this. You only pray for it to end. Every day, every blow, every night you say to yourself: I survived another day in hell. Tomorrow morning I’ll wake up to more hell. And more hell. It never ends.”
Despite the heavy subject matter, Braslavski ended on a note of gratitude: “Thank you all, and thanks especially to Prime Minister Meloni for inviting me here. My heart is full.”