Former hostages and Israeli leaders reacted with shock and outrage Saturday night to new footage issued by terror groups of emaciated Israeli captives held in Gaza’s tunnels, as politicians accused Hamas of being the true culprit behind the hunger crisis in the enclave.

Former hostage Tal Shoham said he had been held with Evyatar David and other captives in the tunnel where David was seen in a video released by Hamas, and that off-camera, terrorists were enjoying air conditioning, cable television and “plenty of food” stolen from aid deliveries.

The footage of David, a clip of which his family approved for publication on Saturday, came after Palestinian Islamic Jihad released similarly harrowing propaganda footage of hostage Rom Braslavski. The clip of David showed him to be skeletal and digging what he said he feared was his grave.

Shoham spoke with Channel 12 as Israel accused Hamas of starving both the hostages and Gaza’s civilians, amid mounting international criticism of Israel over the humanitarian crisis in the Strip. Meanwhile, some members of the opposition assailed the government for failing to secure the hostages’ release.

Shoham, who was released in February as part of the last ceasefire-hostage deal with Hamas, said he had been held together with hostages David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal, as well as fellow former hostage Omer Wenkert, in the tunnel that could be seen in the Hamas footage.

Shoham said Gilboa-Dalal was likely behind a blanket seen in the video that the Hamas captors had put up as a curtain.

“Behind the curtain they’ve put up, which is just one of the blankets we used, apparently Guy Gilboa-Dalal is standing or sitting, because they don’t let them go to a different tunnel,” said Shoham when asked what the video didn’t show.

“And right behind the cameraman, there’s an iron door, and a well-lit room, with air conditioners and a group of terrorists who sit and sleep there. They have cable TV; they have plenty of food — food they have stolen from the humanitarian supplies that Israel sent in for a very long time,” he said. “We could see that they were well fed, that they lacked for nothing. They also bragged about having stolen it, that they had months of supplies in that tunnel and all their........

© The Times of Israel