(TJV NEWS) In a harrowing disclosure that speaks volumes about the brutality inflicted on Israeli captives during the October 7 attacks, the family of abducted Kibbutz Nir Oz resident Itzik Elgarat revealed that an autopsy has confirmed he suffered severe physical abuse before his death in Hamas captivity. As VIN News reported, the findings, released Thursday, indicate that Elgarat’s injuries were consistent with violent torture, challenging earlier suggestions that he may have died from natural causes.

Itzik’s brother, Danny Elgarat, speaking publicly about the autopsy’s conclusions, stated bluntly:  “Itzik didn’t die from a heart attack. His body arrived with broken ribs, big toes, and a broken nose.”

While the official medical report stopped short of declaring a legally definitive cause of death, Danny emphasized that the pattern and severity of the injuries were fully consistent with lethal abuse. “The extent of the trauma could have been fatal,” he said, underscoring the likelihood that his brother succumbed to violence, not illness, during his imprisonment in Gaza.

According to the information provided in the VIN News report, Itzik Elgarat was abducted on October 7, 2023, during the unprecedented Hamas assault on communities in southern Israel. The attackers infiltrated the border, massacring civilians and seizing hostages in a campaign that has been widely condemned for its scale and savagery.

Kibbutz Nir Oz, a bucolic agricultural community, was among the hardest-hit areas in the Gaza envelope, with dozens of residents killed or kidnapped. Itzik was seized amid the chaos and taken deep into Gaza, where he would join hundreds of others in makeshift detention sites run by Hamas and its armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

The cruelty of Itzik’s captivity appears to have been compounded by a fatal misinterpretation. As recounted by Danny during a Knesset session in June, Hamas interrogators became convinced that his brother was an Israeli Air Force pilot. The basis for this suspicion, chillingly, was an eagle tattoo on Itzik’s arm — a symbol the captors apparently associated with military aviation.

According to Danny, Itzik was taken for questioning alongside another captive, Edan Alexander. While Alexander eventually emerged from the interrogation alive, Itzik never returned.

Details provided to VIN News suggest that Hamas’s “interrogations” of suspected military personnel are often conducted with extreme violence, aimed not only at extracting information but at inflicting terror and humiliation. In Itzik’s case, the autopsy report paints a picture of sustained, targeted assault: Multiple broken ribs, suggesting repeated blunt force trauma to the torso. Fractured big toes, consistent with deliberate crushing or severe blows to the feet — a common torture method used to immobilize and debilitate prisoners. A broken nose, indicative of facial strikes delivered with considerable force.

These injuries, combined, point to a prolonged and brutal beating rather than a single moment of violence. Medical examiners noted that while no single injury could be deemed conclusively fatal in isolation, the combined trauma, especially in a captive denied medical treatment, could have easily led to death.

Itzik’s death, as documented in the VIN News report, is not an isolated tragedy but part of a broader pattern of abuse faced by Israeli hostages in Gaza. Testimonies from released captives have described harsh confinement conditions, inadequate food and water, psychological torment, and frequent physical assault.

For Hamas, such treatment serves both operational and propaganda purposes: breaking the morale of prisoners, attempting to extract intelligence, and creating fear among the wider Israeli public. International humanitarian law explicitly prohibits the torture of prisoners of war and civilian detainees, but Hamas has shown repeated disregard for these norms.

The October 7 massacre fundamentally altered the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, sparking a protracted military campaign in Gaza and plunging Israel into one of its deepest security crises in decades. In the attack’s immediate aftermath, more than 250 hostages — including civilians, soldiers, and foreign nationals — were dragged into Gaza. While some have since been released in negotiated exchanges, many remain unaccounted for, with their conditions and locations unknown.

Itzik’s case offers a rare, concrete window into what happens to those who disappear behind Hamas’s lines. His death under torture adds weight to Israel’s contention that hostages are at extreme risk of abuse or execution in captivity, as was reported by VIN News.

Danny Elgarat’s testimony before the Knesset in June was a pivotal moment in raising awareness of his brother’s fate. In emotionally charged remarks, he detailed the sequence of events leading up to Itzik’s disappearance, the mistaken “pilot” suspicion, and the family’s anguish during the months of uncertainty that followed.

The recent autopsy findings, Danny said, have replaced uncertainty with painful clarity. “Now we know what was done to him,” he told lawmakers. “And the world must know it too.”

The revelations carry significant diplomatic weight. Torture and extrajudicial killing of detainees constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, amounting to war crimes under international law. The evidence in Itzik’s case — particularly the medical documentation — could form part of future legal actions in international tribunals or fact-finding missions.

Moreover, as the VIN News report noted, such cases highlight the urgent need for sustained international pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages and to grant humanitarian organizations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, immediate access to all detainees in Gaza.

For the Elgarat family, the autopsy results have brought neither closure nor comfort. “We lost him twice,” Danny reflected — first to abduction, and then to the brutal finality of his killing. Kibbutz Nir Oz, still recovering from the devastation of October 7, has lost yet another of its members to the war’s cruelty.

The family’s decision to share the findings publicly reflects a determination to ensure that Itzik’s death is not reduced to a statistic. In Danny’s words, “The world must understand what Hamas is — not just from the headlines, but from the bodies they return to us.”

Itzik’s case stands as a stark challenge to the international community, which has often struggled to respond decisively to hostage abuse and war crimes committed by non-state actors. As VIN News has reported in multiple contexts, Israel has long warned that Hamas’s actions in Gaza — from embedding military assets in civilian areas to targeting noncombatants — are part of a broader strategy of flouting humanitarian norms while manipulating global opinion.

By documenting and publicizing the fate of hostages like Itzik, Israel hopes to build an irrefutable record of Hamas’s methods and to counter narratives that obscure the group’s brutality.

The death of Itzik Elgarat, revealed through the grim evidence of an autopsy, encapsulates the human cost of the October 7 attacks in the most visceral terms.

While his family mourns, the broader Israeli public is reminded of the stakes in the ongoing conflict — and of the urgent imperative to bring every remaining captive home. For now, the Elgarats’ grief joins that of countless others, bound by the shared conviction that the truth must be told, and that those responsible for such atrocities must one day be held to account.