October 7 · Personal story
Rom Braslavski
Abducted
October 7, 2023
Abduction location
Nova music festival near Re’im
Current outcome
Released alive · October 13, 2025
Released alive on October 13, 2025, after 738 days in captivity.
01
Life before
Rom Braslavski was from Jerusalem’s Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood. A German-Israeli musician and trained medic, he worked as a security guard at Nova.
02
Abduction
On October 7, Rom remained at Nova to help festivalgoers escape. A survivor named Naama later told his family that he led her to safety despite wounds to both hands. His friend Mark Mizrachi described Rom gathering people to throw stones at the attackers; after a rocket-propelled grenade was fired, he lost sight of him. Rom was abducted from the festival and taken to Gaza.
03
Captivity
Rom described being stripped, tied up and left without food. He said he prayed to be rescued and experienced pain, hunger and despair. He later spoke of sexual violence and deliberate humiliation, while choosing not to describe further details. He endured 738 days in captivity; the account preserves his own boundary around what he was willing to recount.
04
Return
Rom was released alive on October 13, 2025, after 738 days in captivity. His freedom ended the period of captivity, although the experience remained with him.
05
After the return
In interview coverage published on November 8, 2025, Rom described being stripped, restrained, starved and subjected to sexual violence. He said humiliation had been central to the abuse. When asked for further details, he chose not to give them. His public account conveyed what he had endured while preserving the limits he set around sharing it.