Eli Sharabi’s life changed forever on October 7, 2023, when a Hamas commando stormed the Be’eri kibbutz and took him hostage to the nearby Gaza Strip, where he remained for 491 days hoping to reunite with his wife and daughters, unaware that they had been killed that very day. That traumatic experience is what he recounts in Hostage (Nagrela Editores), a testimony of his struggle for survival under inhuman conditions.
Read more Surviving on the shattered earth
Identity
I am Jewish, I am Israeli, but I am not religious, although in captivity praying gave us strength”
It has been as many months since your release as you were in captivity, how are you feeling now?
I am fine. I feel better every day. I have been very busy since I was released, first defending the cause of the other hostages, like my friend Alon, whom I left 50 meters underground, and then giving talks in numerous Jewish communities around the world to talk about my book. I am rebuilding my life.
Have you returned since then to your kibbutz, which you describe in the book as a paradise?
Yes. Be’eri was my home for 35 years. For my family, it was our little piece of heaven. My daughters were very happy to live and grow up there. I have returned three or four times since my release, mainly for the funerals of my friends and of course my brother’s (Yossi, kidnapped and later killed by Hamas). I was in my house for the first time just a few months ago. That’s all. It is very difficult for me to be there because the tragedy is everywhere. I am avoiding staying too long in Be’eri. Now I am rebuilding my life in central Israel and I need a new beginning.
If you had known that your wife and daughters had died in that terrorist massacre, would you have been able to endure the hunger and mistreatment from your captors?
Fortunately, I did not know. I did not know that my family had been killed. I was surviving for them. It was the promise I made to my daughters on October 7, that I would come back for them. I was fully confident that our plan had worked and their British passport (Sharabi’s wife was English and his daughters had dual nationality) had protected them. Unfortunately, it was not so, but I did not know until my release.
During your kidnapping, there were moments when you came out of the tunnels to be transferred, when Israel had already unleashed its devastating offensive on Gaza. What was going through your mind seeing that not a stone was left unturned?
Even when we were 50 meters underground we could hear the bombs around us. And when they moved us from one tunnel to another and we had to be on the surface for a few minutes, we could not think about the devastation of Gaza. We could only think about how to get through those places, from one spot to another, without being hit by the bullets flying over us or the bombs.
Read more Rodri, more than a signing
There is a passage where you describe your captors as pure evil, but there are also others where some empathy, at least humanity, is seen. Your family is of Moroccan and Yemeni origin, Arab-majority countries, do you think friendship is possible or is it already a chimera?
There are many issues together. First, about the relationship I had with my captors during my captivity. From the first moment I understood that I had to establish some kind of relationship with them if I wanted to survive, if I wanted to be able to ask them for things, especially food. So, for 491 days, I played a role in a great show. To survive, I did whatever was necessary. And when you live 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with other people and share every moment with them, of course you see that they are human beings like you. I already knew that before. I did not think they were monsters or anything like that, but all those who belong to Hamas and justify the murder of my wife and daughters should be dead. That is what I think. So if in the future someone wants a better fate for the Palestinians, first it is impossible for a terrorist organization to control the Gaza Strip and the civilians. And then, maybe, a re-education of the younger generations so they understand that most Israelis do not wake up every morning wanting to kill them. Maybe then our relationship will improve. I hope so. I wish.
The future of Palestine
“First Hamas has to stop controlling Gaza and indoctrinating hatred of Israel”
You talk about indoctrination in religious extremism and hatred of Israel by Hamas and you, on the other hand, describe yourself in the book as a not especially fervent Jew, how has your identity been built?
Not everyone who is Jewish has to be religious. Being religious, like my brother, is a lifestyle where you get up every day, pray three times, follow kosher rules and all that. That is not my lifestyle. I am Jewish, I am Israeli, but I am not religious. Like most, only a part of Israel is religious.
However, you prayed during your captivity…
Yes. It was very important for us, as hostages, as a group, to do all those prayers before the Sabbath, which is a very sacred day for the Jewish people. And we did, and that gave us a lot of strength and faith, and the hope that one day we would be freed. And those prayers, for us, were not something religious, but something that reminded us of our friends, our families, and gave us a lot of strength. Nothing more.
Your dream was to take your family to London when you got out.
Yes. Simply to reunite with my wife and daughters. I would give them a week to pack and I would move from Be’eri, because I did not want there to be any possibility in the future of seeing again the fear I saw in their eyes on October 7. I did not want to see that again. Never. For me, it was already enough.
Read more The Diplomatic Barcelona
