For Those Left Behind

For many, February was a hopeful month. This was the month that saw the start of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, including the release of 33 hostages (most of them alive) kept by Hamas and other Islamist organizations in Gaza since their abduction on October 7^th in a deal that saw the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees (including individuals who were convicted of murder and terrorist attacks).

The hostages were released in rounds, each round seeing the release of only a few every time. One of those released, Eli Sharabi, 53, shared his story and message which very quickly became a symbol for many Israelis – a symbol of the war and its devastation, a symbol of the fight for the hostages and symbol of hope for humanity in these dark times.

All six hostages who were released in the same round as Eli Sharabi are men. Two of them were mentally ill men who were held by Hamas for more than a decade. One Israeli Muslim Arab of the Bedouin community – Hisham Shaaban a-Sayed, and one an Israeli Ethiopian Jew, Avera Mengistu. Both men entered the Gaza strip more than a decade ago in two separate incidents, a decision that was probably a part of their condition, where they were captured and held ever since. The other four hostages, including Sharabi, were Israeli Jewish men, three fathers (one younger and the other two more matured), and one single young man. Two of them were captured as part of the Hamas attack on the Nova music festival (Omer Shem Tov and Or Levi), and the other two (Eli Sharabi and Ohad Ben-Ami) abducted from their homes in their village community (kibbutz) on the Saturday morning of October 7^th.

Or Levi, 34, lost his wife in that attack. Upon his release he returned to his 3-year-old son who was taken care of by his extended family. Omer Shem Tov returned to his family, Ohad Ben-Ami happily returned to his wife and three girls, who survived the attack. Eli Sharabi returned to three graves. These are the graves of his wife Lianne and two girls Noiya and Yahel. All three were found dead after being brutally removed from their home by militants who raided their community on that fateful Saturday morning. In the chaos of the attack and its aftermath it took a while to identify their bodies, but by that point the father of the family was already held deep inside Gaza.

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Eli Sharabi was born and raised in a Jewish Yemenite family in Tel Aviv, until he moved to the Kibbutz as a teenager, where he met Lianne, who came to the Kibbutz as a volunteer from Bristol, England. Lianne played the clarinet. Among “many other things that disappeared”, as Eli testifies, “the clarinet was also looted.” Just before his release his sadistic captors lied to him and told him that he was about to meet his wife and girls. They knew the truth with no shadow of a doubt. A few days before his release they gleefully told him that his brother was killed by “an Israeli airstrike”. To his inquiries about his wife and girls they responded by telling him they were all “just fine”.

His dreadful story is only one of many similar stories. Entire families butchered in their homes, on their way to or from a family outing, parents witnessing the butchering of their children and vice versa, before being murdered themselves, by men who claim to be warriors in the name of God, or just murderous tagalongs (that too happens in chaos and war). I urge anyone who is interested in knowing what started this war to look up the names of the Bibas family, the Kedem family, the Kutz family, the Kapitscher family. All of them families including babies, infants and children, that were erased at one moment, with no warning. Dozens of Israeli children were murdered by so called “warriors” on October 7^th. Many more were orphaned, including babies and infants, who sometimes witnessed their parents’ murder.

But Eli Sharabi is not looking for revenge. One of the first questions put forward to Sharabi in that interview was: Why did you decide to give this interview. Without hesitation he responded that “We must not leave anyone behind. Every minute in the tunnel, I remember […] There is a boy there [Alon Ohel] […] and he entered my heart. I promised I would not leave him there, that I will fight for him.”

The ”boy” is Alon Ohel, a 24 year old young man (he was 23 when taken to Gaza), a talented musician and a pianist, who was abducted to Gaza from the Nova music festival. He is currently wounded and as it seems in a difficult mental state, and according to eyewitnesses, shackled and for much of the time had been in a tunnel ever since October 2023. There are still more than twenty living hostages held by Hamas and maybe other groups in brutal conditions, including one living American hostage and other Americans who are already dead, as pawns in a sick game of power and fanaticism. They have been all held there since the attack of October 7^th.

It is remarkable to note that for Sharabi the most urgent cause is not to tell the story of his murdered family, his girls, his wife. He fights now for one living hostage, who as he described it, he “adopted” when they were held together.

For one year and four months Eli Sharabi, like many other hostages who gave testimony, was kept secluded from the media. He had no idea about what happened on the day of his abduction, other than what he saw with his own eyes. His first exposure to the news was when a senior Hamas commander came to announce his upcoming release and showed him some pictures of the other hostages who are to be released with him, two of them he knew personally and had no idea of their fate.

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On that Saturday morning of October 7^th, at 6:30 AM in the morning of what was supposed to be a beautiful Festive Saturday (it was the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, which literally means the Joy of the Torah) his personal hell began, his and so many others’.

“The news come in, saying that there is a suspected invasion of terrorists in Be’eri [their village community].” Soon he heard them outside the door: “We make a decision to surrender without a fight, our dog is with us, they open the door [to the safe room, where the family and dog were staying] the dog barks, they shoot inside the saferoom [and kill the dog], we lie on top of the girls [to protect them]… Two [terrorists] catch and take me out of the safe room, they lead the girls to the kitchen, and they tell Lianne to get dressed, because we were in a hurry from the bedroom [it was 6:30 AM when the attack started].” Lianne is confused, Sharabi explains. He tells her not to be afraid. “The scene is of terrible fear, like no other, ten terrorists in the house […] standing with the girls in the kitchen, I know I am about to be taken, and then I understand that the moment had come and they are taking me out of the house and I shout to the girls: I will come back, and from that point I am in a mode of survival.”

Sharabi survived a lynching attack by a Gazan mob, as he entered the strip with his captors, he went through torture, starvation, physical agony, assaults by his captors and more.

And still, Sharabi doesn’t seek revenge. He seeks to bring back the precious lives that are still held in captivity in Gaza. According to an ancient Jewish tradition, saving one life is equivalent to saving an entire world.

One thing that is clear from Sharabi’s story and from this war in general is that this must be stopped. The circle of blood and violence must be broken. We must be creative and brave, and remember that peace is made not with people who are like us but with people who are absolutely unlike us, and even with people who we detest and hate with all our heart. You make peace with your enemies. We can even never forgive, but still we must move on. But before we move on, before there could be peace and before we could talk of hope, we must end what has started this, and we must bring the hostages back. This is the way to end this war. This was the way all along.

The remaining hostages in Gaza – Israelis, Americans, Thais and members of other nationalities and of different faiths – are begging our attention. They are begging for the world to demand their immediate release. They are begging the world, and I am begging the world with them, for mercy, for compassion, for their immediate release.

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An adapted and shorter version of this article appeared in the Cornell Daily Sun.