Israeli Hostage's Harrowing Tale of Survival: 491 Days in Hamas Captivity

The Tragic Homecoming

Eli Sharabi was one of 251 hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023. After 491 days in captivity, he was released as part of a hostage exchange between Israel and the Palestinian group and returned home expecting to reunite with his wife and two daughters. Sharabi didn't know they hadn't survived the attack.

He had last seen them during the assault when an armed group invaded his home in southern Israel and dragged him away to imprisonment. The last thing he told them was: "I will return," while his daughters' eyes were "frozen in horror."

False Hope as Survival Mechanism

"The belief that they were alive, my concern for them, gave me strength," he recalls in the book 'Hostage,' quoted by the New York Post.

Therefore, in February of this year, when he learned he would be released, he allowed himself to imagine life with his family again. His daughters would run toward him when they reunited, he would hug them; and then they would move to England, his wife's homeland, far from the conflict that had separated them.

Sharabi didn't yet know about the war or that 101 of his neighbors had died in the attack. In fact, he only learned of his own brother's death, who was also a hostage, moments before being released.

The Liberation Ceremony: "Our Final Humiliation"

To the New York Post, the Israeli details the liberation ceremony in Gaza, considering it a "propaganda spectacle" by Hamas.

At the time, Sharabi, weighing just over 43 kilograms, was taken to a stage and asked what he would do with his newly acquired freedom. "I said I was very excited to see my wife and daughters."

"It was our final humiliation," he recounted. "But I imagined that my daughters and Lianne would soon be running into my arms."

When he was finally returned to Israeli hands, the official accompanying him told him that his mother and sister were waiting for him. When asked about Sharabi's family, the woman said only: "Your mother and sister will explain to you later."

"It was as if a five-kilogram hammer fell on my head," he said, admitting he immediately understood that his family was dead.

Lianne, Noiya and Yahel, mother and daughters, were shot after Sharabi was captured on October 7. Not even the dog, Mocha, survived the attack.

The strength that gave him the will to live during captivity, after all, had never been there waiting for him; but Sharabi's promise to his daughters was fulfilled: he returned home.

And the path to get there wasn't easy.

Surviving Extreme Deprivation

"If I found a crumb on the floor, I ate it"

Sharabi reported that he was chained twenty-four hours a day, every day, with iron chains around his ankles that tore his skin. His wrists were tied with ropes so tight "they were marked." But the most difficult thing physically for the then-hostage was hunger.

Sharabi said he survived on one and a half pitas (Arabic wheat bread) per day, with waits that sometimes reached 30 hours "for the next dry pita and salty water to drink."

"If I found any crumb on the floor, I grabbed it and ate it. I begged for food constantly," recalled the Israeli, confessing that he knew his captors needed him alive.

The plan made itself almost alone when he found a blade in captivity. He cut his eyebrow, ensuring he was bleeding considerably, and pretended to faint. The performance earned him an extra half pita the following week.

"It was hell," he said, revealing that he reached a point where he felt that "they could break my hands, feet, ribs, no problem, but give me more food."

Physical and Psychological Torture

Hunger wasn't the only problem in captivity. Sharabi recounts an incident where he heard one of his captors on the phone, receiving what seemed like bad news. The frustration was taken out on the hostage.

"He turned against me, beating me until I lost consciousness. Punches, kicks in the ribs..." he wrote, recalling that the other hostages tried to protect him. "I curled up screaming in pain. I tried to crawl away from him, but my feet were still shackled."

Over the next month, Sharabi couldn't sit or stand upright.

In addition to physical abuse, the Israeli also recalled the constant psychological terror they had to face, especially at the hands of the younger, crueler guards: "Their treatment was harsher and more degrading."

"They tried to make us fall into despair, and believe that we had been truly abandoned and that no one cared about our existence," he stated.

One of them often told Sharabi that he had seen his family in protests on television: "They are fighting for you. You have incredible daughters."

Among the guards there were also those who humiliated them using religion, forcing Jews to quote verses from the Quran in exchange for slices of fruit.

And although he knew that Hamas needed the hostages alive, a part of him always remained in a permanent state of fear that one day one of the captors would lose his head and kill him.

"It was in the air all the time, every day," with guards shaking guns indiscriminately at the hostages, gesturing that they were going to "massacre" them.

Lost Hope for Peace

Sharabi assured that he always wanted "to live in peace with his neighbors," referring to the Palestinians in Gaza, but that now he has lost that hope. "The people who set fires, who rape... It will take at least two generations to educate them to love and not hate" before things change.

The Israeli said that "he didn't meet anyone who wasn't involved [in the conflict] in Gaza, not even the civilians." The children themselves, he said, threw shoes at the hostages when they arrived after the October 7 attack. Sharabi said he almost suffered a lynching at the hands of the "enraged crowd that wanted to tear me to pieces."

Context: The October 7 Attack and Historical Conflict

On October 7 Hamas attacked, but the conflict dates back to 1948

The October 7, 2023 attack, carried out by Hamas, resulted in more than 200 hostages and 1,200 deaths.

The Palestinian group has governed the Gaza Strip autocratically since 2006, when it was elected by a population that has lived for decades in conflict with Israel. In fact, since the formation of the Israeli state in 1948 (as a result of World War II and the persecution of Jews), there have been various armed clashes, leading to thousands of deaths.

The war declared by Israel on October 7, 2023 in Gaza to "eradicate" Hamas - hours after an attack on Israeli territory with about 1,200 dead and 251 hostages - has so far resulted in at least 67,173 deaths (including more than 20,000 children) and 169,780 injured, mostly civilians, according to updated numbers from local authorities, which the UN considers reliable.