Israeli soldiers in a Hamas tunnel.Image: keystone
On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists kidnapped kibbutz resident Eli Sharabi as a hostage in the Gaza Strip. He survived, but when he was released he waited in vain for his wife and daughter.
Julian Schütt / ch media
It is the first memoir of an Israeli hostage and you won’t be able to put it down until the end: In a shocking way, Eli Sharabi bears witness to his 491 days of captivity in the suffocating tunnels of the Hamas terrorists, who physically abused and psychologically tortured him. He describes how it all began on the morning of October 7, 2023.
Eli Sharabi lives with his wife Lianne and their daughters Noiya and Yahel in Kibbutz Be’eri, barely 5 kilometers from the border with the Gaza Strip. They are used to rocket attacks. But this time something “unprecedented” is happening. Messages keep popping up on their cell phones. Bing. Bing. Bing.
Decided to survive: Hamas hostage Eli Sharabi after his rescue.Image: keystone
You’ll get images of the carnage at the Nova music festival site, which is taking place nearby. Suddenly the local security team warns them that Hamas gangs in white Toyota pickup trucks have invaded the kibbutz. A 13-year-old classmate writes to Yahel: “You shot my mom!” Then the Sharabis hear a window rattling in their house.
“I’ll be back!” shouts Eli Sharabi as he says goodbye
The Hamas terrorists drag 51-year-old Eli out of the house. “I’ll be back,” he calls as he says goodbye. He doesn’t know whether the family still hears him. A henchman beats him, other Hamas hordes are beside themselves with joy. They celebrate their success with roars. Eli Sharabi understands Arabic and realizes that they want him alive.
They kidnap him across the border into the Gaza Strip. There he notices an ecstatic crowd. Hands grab him, hit his head, curse him. The terrorists try to push back the mob and save it from a lynching.
The terrorists drag Eli into a house whose windows are camouflaged with sackcloth that says UNRWA, the acronym for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. They interrogate him and brutally tie his legs and arms day and night. Soon everything becomes unbearably painful. According to Sharabi, it is “pure torture”. It was only after days that they freed him from the arm shackles.
Over time he gets to know his guards better. They lecture him that there is no place for a state of Israel. In one-on-one conversations, some Hamas people show human traits and sometimes throw him a fruit or some cheese. But when they appear as a group, they outdo each other with derogatory comments, humiliations and brutal actions.
A hostage is missing his hand and forearm
Initially he is housed in an apartment; the food and hygienic conditions are still decent. But as Israeli bombings increase, Hamas hides its hostages in narrow, damp and dark tunnels. Eli is mostly cooped up with young people. One has an amputated arm. He tells how he and other visitors to the Nova Festival fled into a rocket bunker that was completely overcrowded. The terrorists threw grenades into the bunker. While trying to catch a grenade and throw it back into the open, he lost his hand and forearm.
One day a guard comes and tells three of Eli’s fellow prisoners that they can go back to Mom. They pack up the few things they have. It is hard for the remaining hostages to see a few chosen ones suddenly released. Eli later learns that the supposedly freed people never arrived home.
His mission is to survive
Eli is a kind of father figure for some of his fellow prisoners, lifting them up when they can no longer stand the constant fear of death, the psychological and physical terror of the Hamas guards, the desolation in the dungeons and the homesickness. He tells them not to allow themselves to be distracted from their mission. Your mission is to survive. Eli clings to the idea that his wife and daughters in Israel will be aware of his fate and await him.
Eli Sharabi in the hands of Hamas.Image: keystone
There is an almost perverse logic: the hostages fear nothing more than the day when Israeli troops discover them in the tunnels, because Hamas is guaranteed to kill all the prisoners before they are freed. The harder Israel’s army strikes in the Gaza Strip, the more terrible the consequences are for the hostages. The quality and quantity of food decreases drastically, the hiding places become more hideous and their guards more cruel. On the other hand, the Hamas people cheer and are mildly disposed when something happens to Israeli soldiers or one of their helicopters is shot down.
The guards refuse to give the hostages food
They have fun denying the hostages food or going to the toilet. At one point, a terrorist kicks and punches Eli on a whim, leaving him on the ground with presumably broken ribs.
After more than 400 days, a senior Hamas official appears and announces that Eli and other hostages will soon be released. 24-year-old Alon Ohel, who Eli has befriended, collapses. Because he has to remain held hostage because his release has not yet been signed. Alon Ohel was only released in mid-October 2025, after more than two years in captivity. He almost went blind in the tunnels.
Alon Ohel almost went blind during his captivity.Image: keystone
Tunnels full of rats, mice and cockroaches
Eli is taken to another tunnel, the worst of all. Nothing is concrete, just bare earth and a lot of rats, mice and cockroaches. He hopes that “Freedom Day” will come soon so that he can finally hug his family again. Then, after 491 days of hellish torment, the time has come: half-starved and completely emaciated, he is finally released again.
In the Red Cross vehicle he was told that his mother and sister were waiting for him. He demands: “Bring my wife and my daughters to me!” Be silent. Then he realizes everything, and it is the worst pain of his entire ordeal. His Lianne, his Noiya and his Yahel are dead. Murdered by the Hamas terrorists.
Eli Sharabi has written a book about his time as a hostage.Image: keystone
While he was being held hostage, he thought through all the scenarios, including this terrible one. Something “inside me prepared me for it, armed me for it.” He learns that his brother Yossi, who lived in the same kibbutz, has also been kidnapped. He died in an Israeli bombing raid. All Eli Sharabi has to do is visit the graves. As he leaves the cemetery, he says to himself: “Now, live.”