For 16 months, Eli Sharabi endured a nightmare of chains, starvation, and relentless beatings at the hands of Hamas terrorists. Now free, he is sharing his harrowing experience—not for himself, but for those still trapped in captivity.
Speaking in a lengthy televised interview Thursday night, Sharabi revealed the brutality and psychological torment he suffered, particularly as Hamas used their hostages as pawns, worsening their treatment whenever Palestinian prisoners faced tougher conditions in Israeli jails.
“Every irresponsible statement—we were the first ones to suffer,” he said, describing how his captors would retaliate with hunger and violence. “They come to us and say, ‘They aren’t giving our prisoners food? You won’t eat. They’re beating our prisoners? We’ll beat you.’”
Sharabi, 53, lost 40% of his body weight—a shocking 66 pounds—during his ordeal, at times surviving on nothing more than a single plate of pasta a day. “If it happens for a day or two, it’s not terrible,” he said. “But for six months, that’s what we ate—every day.”
A dried date or a quarter piece of bread was a rare luxury. He recalled cherishing a single pita, breaking it into equal pieces with his fellow captives and rationing it throughout the night, taking tiny bites to stave off hunger.
“People should really think when they open a fridge at home,” he reflected. “It’s everything. It’s everything to open a fridge.”
He and other captives were shackled in iron chains, routinely beaten, and humiliated. The abuse worsened depending on external events—when a particularly cruel guard, nicknamed “The Garbage,” learned that his home had been destroyed in an Israeli airstrike, he unleashed his fury on the hostages. “Kicks, punches—to the ribs,” Sharabi recalled. “Alon [Ohel] shielded me with his body.”
Throughout his captivity, Sharabi formed deep bonds with fellow hostages, particularly 24-year-old Alon Ohel, with whom he spent over a year. “I adopted him from the first minute. We were together 24/7. I know everything about him and his family,” he said.
That bond made their separation all the more painful. On February 8, when Sharabi was among those released, Ohel grabbed him and refused to let go, clinging to him in desperation until a guard tore them apart. “It was hysteria. It was a very difficult moment,” he recalled.
Ohel remains in captivity. Sharabi vowed not to rest until his friend—and every hostage—returns home. “We cannot leave anyone behind,” he said.
Sharabi had no access to news during his captivity and only learned upon his release that his wife, Lianne, and his daughters, Noiya and Yahel, were murdered in the October 7 Hamas massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri. His brother, Yossi Sharabi, was taken hostage and later killed in captivity, likely in an airstrike.
And yet, even in unimaginable grief, Sharabi refuses to dwell in anger. “I was lucky,” he said quietly. “I had Lianne for 30 years. I had those amazing daughters for years. I’m not angry.”
For 52 days, before he was moved to Hamas’s underground tunnels, Sharabi believed a rescue was possible. He even contemplated taking his captor’s gun and trying to escape—but the likelihood of survival was near zero.
Once underground, all hope of a dramatic rescue disappeared. “Once you’re in a tunnel, you just pray it won’t happen,” he said grimly. “If anyone thinks about heroic rescues inside the tunnels—the chance of bringing people out alive is zero. That’s why people are bound by the legs.”
Before being taken into the tunnels, Sharabi briefly shared a cell with Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, and Almog Sarusi, who were later executed by Hamas in August 2024.
Hersh, he said, left him with one phrase that carried him through the darkness: “When there’s a why, always find the how.”
When the three were led away, Sharabi was convinced they were being released. “I told them, ‘You’re on your way home.’ Ori Danino smiled at me and said, ‘See you in Israel.’ We had no idea they were being moved to another tunnel.”
Sharabi is now free, but his fight is far from over. His mission is clear: bring every last hostage home.
“We cannot abandon them,” he insisted. “We cannot leave anyone behind.”
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
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One Response
the Malach said to Hagar: ” You son will be a PERE ADAM” remember in Hebrew grammar the noun comes first the adjective after! yishmoel did Teshivah in later years, so got rid from the “PERE” BUT HIS DECENDENTS IN GAZA GOT RID OF “ADAM” – NO HUMANITY LEFT IN GAZA ZERO – IT’S ALL PERE CHAYA OR PERE MONSTER!