Tel Aviv, Israel – September 20, 2025 – In one heart-wrenching video that has led to the international outcry it is a rant-like, crude plea, with no editing, by the mother of a 32-year-old hostage who is believed to be one of the 20 Israelis still held captive in Gaza, that the hostage be freed, which has, in turn, hurled the longstanding conflict back into the limelight.
“Spare my son, he is innocent, he is hurting, and every day he is not with us is another heartbreak, ” Avi Cohen, mother of a captive software engineer, cries in the footage that was shared prominently on social media sites. The video, filmed in a small apartment in Tel Aviv with decaying family photos and a flickering Hanukkah candle, came as aid groups reported an almost complete breakdown of humanitarian efforts in Gaza, with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) halting all its programming because of unassailable safety conditions.
Authenticated by Israeli intelligence and shown on some of the largest networks, CNN to Al Jazeera, the clip shows Cohen holding a tarnished picture of her son with his smiling face compared to the harsh reality of his kidnapping during the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023. Avi, a U.S.-Israeli citizen who volunteered in tech incubators in Gaza prior to the war, was kidnapped in a border kibbutz.
The message of his mother, in Hebrew with English subtitles, has already been watched by more than 50 million people in 24 hours, creating candelight vigils in New York to London and with a fresh series of diplomatic pressure on Qatar and Egypt as the mediators. This is not a political thing, it is a cry of a mother, and this is what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a gloomy speech at Knesset; he swore to make hostage negotiations a priority in future negotiations.
The plea is in line with the desperate news from the war-torn enclave, where Israeli airstrikes were more rampant during the night, resulting in the death of at least 45 people, according to the Health Ministry of Gaza. The move by IRC to cease operations, on the basis of drone surveillance, ground incursions and a labyrinth of checkpoints, leaves 2.3 million locals with no access to clean water, medical supplies, or food distributions.
Spokesperson of IRC Kelly Razzouk, her voice breaking, said in Amman, Jordan, that they could not get in contact with anyone without risking the lives of their teams, describing the abandoned clinics with untreated wounds piled up. The satellite shots taken by Planet Labs show that some parts of the neighbourhood were destroyed and lie in debris, with improvised tents scattered all over them like delicate guardians facing the advancing Mediterranean cold.
Humanitarian Black Hole: Aid Groups Sound Alarm as Winter Looms
The IRC operation is suspended, highlighting a wider deconstruction of the Gaza aid structure, the most delicate since the outbreak of the conflict almost two years ago. The strip served in the past as a center to 150 international NGOs but it is currently under a de facto siege, border crossings such as Rafah being closed tighter than ever.
Friday, the World Food Programme said that staple food is now being dropped to once-a-week rations on only 60 per cent of the population, compared to the daily feeds before escalation. The levels of malnutrition in children who are below 5 years have shot to 35 per cent according to UNICEF data, with the incidences of acute watery diarrhoea skyrocketing among sources of contaminated water.
Razzouk created a picture of hopelessness based on ground reports prior to the pullout: families scavenging in sewage-infested streets picking out ragged scraps, hospitals with scarce bandages to sew gunshot victims, and old people falling under the strain of untreated chronic conditions.
The demand, she stressed, is not booming, but bursting, as the crisis is being exacerbated by an even stricter blockade imposed on Israel by its tightening blockade after a Hezbollah rocket attack last week. According to the estimates of the UN office of the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) there are yet to be met requirements of one and a half billion dollars in the next quarter alone, as the donors wear out due to competing global disasters in Ukraine and Sudan.
Critics such as the Human Rights Watch also charge both parties with the weaponisation of aid. According to a new report, Hamas is alleged to divert fuel to tunnel networks and Israeli troops have stalled more than 4,000 aid trucks at checkpoints citing security checks that time into days.
According to the Arab HRW director in a briefing in Geneva, Tirana Hassan, this is collective punishment under the guise of precaution. On Saturday, protests broke out in Ramallah, the Palestinians flying photos of the malnourished children and shouting against starvation as a strategy.
Echoes of Agony: Families Unite in Shared Grief
The video by Yael Cohen has triggered a series of similar stories, creating an international chorus of heartbreak. Family members of the 20 confirmed alive hostages were present in a support group in Tel Aviv dubbed The Empty Chairs, the first time that the relatives had met since the plea was posted online, where stories were told with a mixture of hope and horror.
The last message captured by Rachel Levy, whose brother was released in a swap in November 202,4 was a desperate voice note on WhatsApp where Avi told her that he needed to be evacuated, as Cohen did, of a lively son being reduced to a bargaining chip. The facilitator of the group, a psychologist, Dr Miriam Halevi, had reported a psychological cost of nearly epidemic proportions: the diagnosis of PTSD among the families had increased by 200 per cent, sleep was devastated by nightmares, by derogations.
Every video, such as that of Yael, halts the circulation of the blood, but it also restarts the conscience of the world, Halevi noted, when the participants lit candles of yahrzeit in memory of the 1,200 who were killed on October 7. The group Hostage and Missing Families Forum is an American advocacy group that offered a louder cry, getting a White House meeting with envoy Brett McGurk, who has been flying back and forth between Jerusalem and Doha.
The social media has brought the human aspect to the fore, as #SaveAvi is the top trend, and user-created content is being produced: morphing her face into peace doves, AI-generated family dinners, and duets to her words matching shekhu.
Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo, celebrities, re-shared the video, which redirected donations to the Hostage Families Fund, which raised over 10 million overnight. Nonetheless, the Internet hate-speak continues, with pro-Palestinian news feeds, Magic-Pallingies that Israeli prisoners are nothing compared to 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, having sparked the debate as to whose case is worth a headline.
Diplomatic Thaw? Qatar’s Proposal Hangs in Balance
Cohen has urged frozen discussions on the geopolitical front to motion. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani floated an initiative to create a humanitarian bridge on Saturday, offering a 72-hour ceasefire to get four hostages – including Avi – in return for 150 Palestinian prisoners and 500 tons of relief.
Egyptian negotiators were happy with the plan, and this was supported by the UAE, but Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri rejected this plan as an asymmetric one and insisted on a complete withdrawal in the north of Gaza. The office of Netanyahu indicated tentative openness, conditioning it on intelligence about the state of the hostages: there are reports that Avi and others are performing mock executions and forced labour in the labyrinths of the study bunkers of Rafah.
In a call with Netanyahu, U.S. President Joe Biden, who concluded a summit on climate change with a stop at the United Nations in New York, suggested that moral clarity would be his bargaining tool to make Israel comply by leveraging $3.8 billion of annual aid. European managers, including the German leader, Olaf Scholz, and Emmanuel Macron of France, voiced the same opinion, and the EU promised to supply EUR200 million in emergency funds in case crossings are reopened.
The thinkers find rays through darkness. Itay Epshtain, a fellow in Brookings Institute, said that a mother voice could break through diplomatic armours, a statement based on the history of such situations as the 2011 exchange of Gilad Shalit. But, there are always sabotages: The threats of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the escalations of Iran via its proxies are likely to disrupt delicate trust.
The Shadow of Winter: Race against Starvation and Frost
As the month of September takes over October, the squeeze of time is more pronounced. The climate of Gaza was formerly gentle, but it promises hypothermia to tent inhabitants who have neither blankets nor fuel.
This is added to by the departure of the IRC, where the distribution of 1.5 million winter kits that were stored in Jordan did not have an emergency plan. OCHA Rory Trainer warned that the agency is staring down a perfect storm and estimated 100,000 cases of hypothermia would arise in case the aid halts.
The plea of Cohen, who concludes with a whispery request of coming back home, Avi – we are waiting, sums up the stalemate: the war on attrition, with civilians as its main victims. Vigils to be held in Jerusalem Sunday in Rabin Square are determined to keep the flame it was hoped to get going, and families pledged, No silence unto all be free. The dark lanes of Gaza are echoing with the name of Avi, translated into Arabic as father of peace, and give some hope of shared humanity in the ruins.
To Yael Cohen, the video was therapy and a trigger. I talked on behalf of my son, now the world talks to us all, she told the gathered reporters outside her home with her red but determined eyes. When the mediators turn up in Doha again, the question remains: Will a scream of a mother then open the gates? September 20, 2025, will be one of the monuments to perseverance in the capitals and the streets of America.