Hundreds gathered Monday at the Miami Beach Convention Center to hear powerful testimony from an Oct. 7 survivor who was held captive by Hamas for nearly 500 days.<\/p>\n
His wife, daughters and brother were murdered, but Eli Sharabi said he still finds hope in the darkest of times.<\/p>\n
During the evening of celebration on the second day of Hanukkah, Sharabi spoke to about the antisemitic attack in Australia that left at least 15 people dead. \u00a0<\/p>\n
“This horror, terror act against Jews, we’re very sorry what happened to them,” he said. <\/p>\n
Sharabi was one of the main speakers at Monday’s event.<\/p>\n
Recalling the day he was kidnapped <\/p>\n
He spoke about his time being held captive following the Oct. 7 attack \u2013 491 days. <\/p>\n
“My wife, my two daughters been murdered that day in our house with their British passports in their hands,” he shared. <\/p>\n
Sharabi said he was kidnapped by Hamas and lived in torment.<\/p>\n
“I was chained, 24\/7\u2013 I was chained, my legs, and humiliated on a daily basis, and violence time to time, one time they broke my ribs. The most difficult thing was the starvation. I ate only one meal a day,” he said. <\/p>\n
Remaining hopeful during times of tragedy <\/p>\n
Sharabi said finding light during unfathomable darkness is what has gotten him through in the days following the tragedy in Australia. <\/p>\n
“Even in the darkest moments, each one with his life can find optimism moments and can find the light; you just need to believe. I’m very happy to be here, to be alive, to be a free man \u2013 because freedom is priceless,” said Sharabi. <\/p>\n
City officials said they are beefing up police presence and security throughout Hanukkah after the mass murder in Australia to ensure the safety of all citizens.<\/p>\n
\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds gathered Monday at the Miami Beach Convention Center to hear powerful testimony from an Oct. 7 survivor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[12388,239,41482,269,123,125,124,18722],"class_list":["post-84880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-australia","tag-hamas","tag-hanukkah","tag-israel","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}