Hamas-Geisel Eli Sharabi tells how he learned about his family’s death

The pictures of Eli Sharabi went around the world. In a cynical ceremony he was shown by Hamas, emaciated, with anxious look. The rest of the world could only imagine what he had experienced as the hostage of Hamas during the 491 days.

Sharabi was one of the Israelis who were deported on October 7, 2023 by Hamas terrorists from the Kibbutz Be’eri. But with his release, the horrors for the 52-year-old did not end. His wife Liann and his daughters Noiya, 16 years old, and Yahel, 13, were murdered in the attack. However, Sharabi had not experienced anything about that during his hostage. In an interview on Israeli television, he now reported for the first time how he learned about it and how it was in the catch of Hamas.

Sharabi remembered the moment when an employee of the Red Cross received him to bring him to a base of the Israeli forces. Psychologists and a friend waited for him there. “I said: ‘Bring my wife and the girls”,” said Sharabi, according to CNN, in the interview. The girlfriend had only replied that his sister and mother were waiting for him. “It was clear that it was not necessary to say it, because at that moment she had already told me. It was clear that the worst happened,” Sharabi told Channel 12.

In a propagada show, Hamas had forced him to say that he was looking forward to seeing his wife and daughter again. “I just hope that she didn’t have to suffer in her last moments,” said the former hostage in the emotional conversation. “I hope that it happened quickly and was not painful. And that they are now in a better place.”

During the first few days in the violence of Hamas, he was tied up with ropes on hands and legs, reported Sharabi. “There were moments when I just passed out, then I woke up again after two or three hours and the pain continued.” After three days, at least the bonds were solved. The hostages would have little to eat and drink. “Describing the feeling of hunger is not possible,” he said. He chewed on a small piece of bread for ten minutes, and every day he dreamed of opening a full fridge.

Sharabi lost 30 kilos during the hostage, and when he was released, some Sharabi had compared physical condition with that of concentration camp survivors. In addition, violence was repeatedly taken with the hostages, most of his hostile Sharabi spent without daylight and fresh air.

Now Sharabi is particularly committed to the release of Alon Ohel. With the 24-year-old, he had a close friendship during the hostage. “I adopted him from the first minute,” said Sharabi in the television interview. Ohel had suffered a collapse when he learned that his friend was released and he did not. “We can’t leave anyone behind,” emphasized Sharabi and told how he was hoping for his liberation every day.

So far, Hamas handed over 33 hostages, including eight deaths, to Israel. Now there are 59 deported Israelis in the sealed -down Gaza Strip, although only 27 are alive. In return, Israel released 1,777 Palestinian prisoners, among them dozens of convicts with long -term prison terms for terrorists.