{"id":495082,"date":"2026-06-16T06:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T06:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/495082\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T06:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T06:20:13","slug":"this-pregnancy-is-our-victory-released-hostage-elkana-bohbot-and-wife-rebuild-thei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/495082\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018This pregnancy is our victory\u2019: released hostage Elkana Bohbot and wife rebuild thei"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two months ago, six months after Elkana was freed, the couple closed that circle with an emotional video announcing that they are expecting their second child, a daughter and sister to their 6-year-old son, Re\u2019em.<\/p>\n

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4 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05d0\u05dc\u05e7\u05e0\u05d4<\/a>\"\u05d0\u05dc\u05e7\u05e0\u05d4<\/p>\n

Elkana and Rebecca Bohbot <\/p>\n

(Photo: Adi Orni)<\/p>\n

\u201cLast Sukkot, Re\u2019em and I were staying at a hotel in Tiberias,\u201d Rebecca says. \u201cAt night, Re\u2019em told me he was sad because all the children at the hotel had siblings and he didn\u2019t. I explained to him that he would have siblings, that we were waiting for Daddy because I couldn\u2019t make him a brother on my own, but it broke me. I realized the child was losing hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cI prayed to God and said, \u2018God, enough, mercy. The child wants a sibling. Bring me my husband already.\u2019 That same night, President Trump announced the release of Elkana and all the other hostages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elkana: \u201cFor two years there, I ate my heart out, especially in the moments when I thought I wouldn\u2019t come back, when I thought it was a shame Re\u2019em didn\u2019t have a brother or sister. And now, thank God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebecca: \u201cTwo months before he was kidnapped, Elkana told me, \u2018Let\u2019s have another baby,\u2019 and I stopped him. I only stopped nursing Re\u2019em when he was 3, and I wanted a little time for myself before starting again with breastfeeding. When he was kidnapped, I regretted that we hadn\u2019t done it.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did you feel when you found out you were pregnant?
\nRebecca: \u201cIt was a surprise. I didn\u2019t expect it to happen so quickly. With Re\u2019em it took us a year, after I had a natural miscarriage in between. The truth is I was very stressed when I found out. As much as I wanted it and waited for it, I wasn\u2019t ready for the hormonal madness I was about to go through while still needing to support Elkana and Re\u2019em.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, I decided to get all those negative thoughts out of my head. I said, \u2018Wow, God heard me. All my prayers reached Him,\u2019 like the song Re\u2019em always sang when Elkana was in captivity: \u2018God Almighty always loves me and it will always get even better for me.\u2019 I always said that our revival and our victory would be to bring life.\u201d<\/p>\n

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4 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05d0\u05dc\u05e7\u05e0\u05d4<\/a>\"\u05d0\u05dc\u05e7\u05e0\u05d4<\/p>\n

Elkana and Rebecca Bohbot <\/p>\n

(Photo: Adi Orni)<\/p>\n

How did you tell Elkana?
\nRebecca: \u201cIt took me two days to tell him. We are all still in rehabilitation, and I was afraid it would knock him off focus. It was New Year\u2019s Eve. That morning I bought baby shoes, put the pregnancy test in a box, and in the evening I said, \u2018Happy New Year,\u2019 and gave him the box. He screamed with joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elkana: \u201cIt was a dream, a miracle. There is no greater victory than that. Our enemy does not want us to flourish and multiply. That is what hurts him most, and my victory over them is this pregnancy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March, Elkana celebrated his 37th birthday, his first since captivity. A party had been planned at his club Shalvata in Tel Aviv, but, as often happens in Israel, plans changed because of the Iranian attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t give up,\u201d Elkana says. \u201cWe moved to a loft near a shelter and celebrated big time. It was the first time I allowed myself to dance. Since Nova, I hadn\u2019t been to a party and hadn\u2019t danced, out of respect for my friends and partners who were murdered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elkana\u2019s book, \u201c738 Days in Hamas Captivity,\u201d written with Eli Khalifa and published by Dani Books, was recently released. It begins at the party and ends with his release from captivity. Even alongside the joy of his return, the family reunion and the baby on the way, the Bohbots are still grappling with everything they endured.<\/p>\n

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4 View gallery <\/p>\n

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The day of Elkana’s release <\/p>\n

(Photo: IDF)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a miracle that Elkana is here. I\u2019m not allowed to complain,\u201d Rebecca says. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean they came back and the story is over. For us, the story has only just begun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elkana: \u201cMy nightmare is not over. At night, when one of my hands is stroking Re\u2019em\u2019s head and the other is holding Rebecca tightly to make sure she is there next to me, I understand that I came out of the tunnels, but the tunnels did not come out of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebecca: \u201cElkana is a different person from the one I knew, but I am also a different woman. We are learning each other again and choosing each other again every day. I\u2019ve had psychological support since October 7, and they prepared me for the fact that he would come back different and that things at home could be very difficult. Thankfully, he came back in much better condition than I expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did captivity change your relationship?
\nElkana: \u201cWhat existed before is gone. We are rebuilding our relationship. Like two people who may know each other, but have both changed. I need to learn the new Rebecca and she needs to get to know the Elkana who went through what he went through.\u201d<\/p>\n

In what way did you change?
\nRebecca: \u201cBefore October 7, I was more anxious about the future. I always wanted to save and hold on to things, and Elkana just wanted to live and spend. Since captivity, we have switched roles. I learned to let go after seeing how quickly life can turn upside down. I understood that no matter what I have, if Elkana is not with me, I have nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

What challenges are you dealing with today?
\nRebecca: \u201cElkana is in a complex emotional state. He is in the guilt stage. He blames himself that he is alive and his friends are not. He can\u2019t come to terms with the fact that they were murdered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elkana: \u201cI think a lot about my friends who didn\u2019t get out of there. Sometimes I have my floods. People need to understand that my soul is wounded. This is a trauma that accompanies every single moment, especially when I eat. Food has a different meaning than it had before. I don\u2019t sleep at night. Sometimes Rebecca finds me on the balcony in the middle of the night. I wake up and feel that I have to be under the open sky, in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n

What helps you?
\nElkana: \u201cBeing active. I have such a packed schedule because it is part of my healing. If I\u2019m not doing something, I sink. I am completely occupied with commemoration and advocacy. That is my life\u2019s mission, whether through meetings with people, lectures or exhibits around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

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4 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05d0\u05dc\u05e7\u05e0\u05d4<\/a>\"\u05d0\u05dc\u05e7\u05e0\u05d4<\/p>\n

‘For two years in captivity, I ate my heart out over the fact that Re\u2019em had no brother or sister’ <\/p>\n

(Photo: Adi Orni)<\/p>\n

Rebecca was born and raised in Colombia in a Christian family. When she was 15, her parents divorced.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy home fell apart. There was nothing holding me in Colombia,\u201d she says. \u201cI came to Israel at 23 for the wedding of my cousin, who married an Israeli she met here, and I simply fell in love with the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until October 7, she worked in Mevaseret Zion for a tourism company specializing in travel from South America.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore the war, tourism was at its peak and it was one of the most beautiful periods of my life,\u201d she says. \u201cAbout a year after Elkana was kidnapped, I tried to go back to work two days a week, but when the humanitarian deal happened and Elkana was not part of it, it was very bad for me and I couldn\u2019t keep working.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter Elkana was released, they asked me to come back, but then the whole office was put on unpaid leave because there is no incoming tourism at all. I\u2019m not complaining. Everything is for the best and I will find myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the many interviews she gave during Elkana\u2019s captivity, Rebecca did not speak about being a convert to Judaism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why I didn\u2019t tell it. It probably didn\u2019t seem relevant to me,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is the first time I\u2019m talking about it. Elkana calls me Ruth the Moabite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did you convert for him?
\nRebecca: \u201cNo. I converted of my own accord in New York before we became a couple. I decided I didn\u2019t want to do it for anyone, only for myself. I was frightened by the process. It is not simple to convert, but when I got to know Judaism I was very impressed and decided I wanted to build a kosher home in Israel. I returned to Israel in 2016 as a Jew.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elkana: \u201cI have such a packed schedule because it is part of my healing. If I\u2019m not doing something, I sink. I am completely occupied with commemoration and advocacy. That is my life\u2019s mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did your parents react to the fact that you converted and live in Israel?
\nRebecca: \u201cI received full support from my mother. My father objected at first, but I\u2019m not really in touch with him, so it doesn\u2019t interest me. For them, the fact that I live in Israel is traumatic, especially after Elkana\u2019s kidnapping. But I always tell them that I am part of this country, for better or worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother and siblings supported me very much during Elkana\u2019s captivity. My mother and brother came to Israel to be with me, and I also traveled twice to Colombia and met the president there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did the captivity period make you want to take the family and flee back to Colombia?
\nRebecca: \u201cIt is the irony of fate, because I fled Colombia for here because it is a country of kidnappings. When I came here, I knew there were terrorists here and that it wasn\u2019t always safe, but I also knew I could walk down the street or send my son to the park and no one would kidnap him. There, a child can be kidnapped in a mall from his mother\u2019s hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elkana: \u201cWe thought we had a safe country. So we thought. Show me another place in the world where terrorists break into homes in entire communities and kill and kidnap and rape. This is an actual Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two months ago, six months after Elkana was freed, the couple closed that circle with an emotional video…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-495082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}