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<\/p>\nWhen a group of Hamas terrorists dragged Eli Sharabi from his home on Kibbutz Be\u2019eri on Oct. 7, 2023, he yelled \u201cI\u2019ll come back!\u201d in the direction of his wife and two daughters.<\/p>\n
After being held in Gaza for 491 days, he did come back. And now, he has written the searing \u201cHostage\u201d as a record of his ordeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Readers know from the outset what Sharabi didn\u2019t learn until his release on Feb. 8, 2025: His wife, Lianne; 16-year-old Noiya; and 13-year-old Yahel were murdered in their home after Sharabi was abducted. The book\u2019s dedication page features a photo of their smiling faces, alongside a photo of the author\u2019s brother Yossi, who was killed in captivity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Why We Wrote This<\/p>\n
Countless people have endured horrific suffering after more than two years of war in Gaza. It is gratifying that one good and hopeful man has had his life returned to him, our critic writes, as completely changed as it must be.<\/p>\n
One wonders whether Sharabi would have endured had he known of these losses. As he tells it, from the moment he is driven from Israel into Gaza by the euphoric terrorists, he remains laser-focused on one thing: surviving and returning to his loved ones. Lianne was raised in England, and she and the girls had dual British-Israeli citizenship. Lianne screamed \u201cBritish passport!\u201d when the five terrorists stormed in and the men demanded their documents. The belief that Hamas might be reluctant to harm British citizens provides Sharabi a measure of reassurance over the next 16 months.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cHostage\u201d is a frank account of Sharabi\u2019s time in captivity; it is both difficult to read and difficult to put down. The author, 51 when he was kidnapped, faces steadily deteriorating circumstances. Initially, he is hidden in a home with another hostage, a terrified Thai worker named Khun. Despite being shackled, the two men are relatively comfortable and well-fed.\u00a0Because Sharabi speaks Arabic, in addition to Hebrew and English, he slowly gets to know his two Hamas guards and the males of the household. They spend hours talking and playing cards. He is relieved above all that he has not been taken down to Hamas\u2019s network of tunnels, whose reputation is of \u201ca bottomless underworld with no light, no air, and no return.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
On his 51st day in Gaza, Sharabi\u2019s situation changes drastically: He is forced deep underground into the tunnels. He is so frightened of what awaits him that he considers resisting, knowing that doing so will lead to his death. \u201cThere is always a choice,\u201d he writes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The author is brought to a room that eventually holds six other Israeli hostages, all younger men who had been abducted from the Nova music festival. They share their harrowing stories and trade information, trying to grasp the enormity of the situation. On their third morning together, a guard appears and tells three of them \u2013 Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Almog Sarusi, and Ori Danino \u2013 to gather their things: They are being released. Sharabi writes that he was \u201cdeeply jealous\u201d but happy for them. Only much later does he learn that they were executed in the tunnels.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\t\t\tAbdel Kareem Hana\/AP\/File\n<\/p>\n
Eli Sharabi, who had been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, was handed over to the Red Cross in Deir al-Balah, Feb. 8, 2025. He has chronicled his 491-day ordeal in the new book, \u201cHostage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sharabi remains with the other three, Alon Ohel, Or Levy, and Eliya Cohen.\u00a0The tunnel has electricity and running water, and they receive two meals a day. They understand that the terrorists want to keep them alive because they are, in the author\u2019s words, Hamas\u2019s \u201cbargaining chips.\u201d After 40 days, however, Israeli airstrikes\u00a0aboveground\u00a0force them to move to a different tunnel. Here, the rooms are smaller, and there is no power or water.<\/p>\n
\u201cDifficult days lie ahead,\u201d Sharabi writes with considerable understatement. As the war rages above them, food and supplies become scarce. They are are surrounded by raw sewage and ravaged by hunger, sometimes given only one stale piece of pita for the day. Colonies of worms begin to multiply around them and infest their meager belongings. Sharabi describes them as \u201cliving in suffocating proximity to fear, longing, darkness, despair, bathed in that ubiquitous stench.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When their captors are in a group, the author observes, \u201cthey become meaner and humiliate us more,\u201d taunting them and forcing them to wait before being allowed to relieve themselves. As individuals, they occasionally offer small kindnesses, like giving the famished hostages a wedge of a clementine. But, one day, a guard receives a phone call with bad news; he flies into a rage and attacks Sharabi, repeatedly punching and kicking him. For a month, Sharabi is in intense pain, barely able to sit up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Through it all, Sharabi demonstrates an extraordinary resilience, which helps him cope with unimaginable anxiety and deprivation. As the oldest, he assumes an almost paternal role, particularly with Ohel, with whom he becomes close. Sharabi\u2019s professional background is in management, helping him mediate the conflicts that inevitably arise among hostages confined together for months in a cramped space, scared and starving. He fights their dehumanization, emphasizing that, despite their dire circumstances, there are still some things that they can control. Remarkably, he insists that each night they name at least one good thing that happened that day. Perhaps a despised guard didn\u2019t enter their room, or a kinder guard gave them tea.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s wrenching to read about how Sharabi\u2019s love for his family keeps him going. He passes some of the endless time telling Ohel detailed stories about his wife and children. \u201cI\u2019ve got to believe they\u2019re all right so I can hold on for them, so I can survive for them,\u201d he writes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But he understands that his wife and children might be dead \u2013 that he must prepare himself for that possibility and focus on surviving for his own sake, too. \u201cI want to live,\u201d he recalls thinking. \u201cI love life. I crave it. I want to breathe life, to walk free, to return to the open skies, to go back home, to work, to purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Countless people in the region have endured horrific suffering after more than two years of war. Still,\u00a0it is gratifying that one good and hopeful man has had his life returned to him, as completely changed as it must be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a group of Hamas terrorists dragged Eli Sharabi from his home on Kibbutz Be\u2019eri on Oct. 7,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[223,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-249140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}