By elocal magazine
In an exclusive extract from his book, released captive Eli Sharabi recalls his brutal abduction from his home on Kibbutz Be’eri
On October 7 2023, Eli Sharabi was kidnapped from his home by Hamas terrorists. After being held for 491 days, mostly in a tunnel beneath Gaza, he was released in February of this year. Now he has written a book about his ordeal, memories of which he shared in an exclusive interview with The Telegraph’s Allison Pearson. Below is the first of three extracts from Sharabi’s book, Hostage
October 2023
I’m being kidnapped. I understand this is a catastrophe. I understand what this means. I don’t mind that they’re beating me. I don’t even feel it. Because in these moments – as I’m being led past the kibbutz fence, under the blazing sun, engulfed by the smell of smouldering ruins, a headband strapped over my eyes, dragged by terrorists gripping both my hands, but knowing at least that Lianne and the girls were left behind – I focus and concentrate on one mission: surviving to return home. There is no more regular Eli. From now on, I am Eli the survivor
After a short drive, they stop and haul another hostage into the car – a Thai worker from a neighbouring kibbutz. They dump him on top of me. The car speeds west. I can’t see anything, but I hear the slow creaking of iron. We cross a gate, maybe a checkpoint. The terrorists stop for a second and speak to someone outside. The car continues driving and I know that it’s over. They’re taking us inside. Into Gaza.
The vehicle stops. The terrorists pull me and the Thai worker out. There’s a huge commotion around us. I hear a noisy crowd, ecstatic, and suddenly hands start pulling me. Many hands. I’m being dragged into a sea of people who start thumping my head, screaming, trying to rip me limb from limb. They’re fighting over me. Cursing and whistling all around. My heart is pounding, my mouth is dry, I can barely breathe. The Hamas terrorists try to push the mob back, and after a struggle, they pull me back into their own hands, drag me, and quickly smuggle me into a building. It’s a mosque. I can hear my own breathing and the Thai worker sobbing next to me. With trembling hands, I remove my shirt and pants and strip down to my boxers in front of the terrorists’ prying eyes. They start interrogating me.
They talk to me in Arabic and I answer in Arabic. The fact I know Arabic makes them stressed. They’re stressed, period. They interrogate the Thai worker too. He doesn’t understand what they want. He doesn’t speak Arabic, or Hebrew, or even any English. They hit him when he fails to answer, and he cries. I step in to help him. His name is Khun, and I try to reassure him, translate their questions, and explain what’s happening. I know I have to support him and keep him safe. After a few minutes, they blindfold us again, this time tightly, and bind our hands behind our backs with tight zip ties. From this point on, they begin what seems like an attempt to confuse the enemy. They move us from place to place. From the terrorists’ chatter, I understand it’s deliberate and co-ordinated. They’re switching teams, locations, and vehicles on purpose so the IDF can’t track them. After the last stop, we drive again, a short ride, until the car reverses down a small slope and brakes. They pull us out. I feel sand under my bare feet and think: Just not a tunnel, please, God, not a tunnel.
We climb one flight of stairs, then another. Between the flights, I reckon we’ve entered an enclosed building. I can smell cooking and laundry. This must be a house. It feels reassuring to be inside. At the top of the second staircase, I feel a breeze, as if there are no walls around us. The terrorists lead us into a room and seat us on a bed. Someone brings us water. I take a few sips. They remove our zip ties, and I thank them, relieved to free my arms. The zip ties hurt terribly and I’m glad they’re off.
But a minute later, the terrorists return with thick ropes and tie us up again, even tighter. They bind our hands behind our backs again, and this time also tie our legs. The ropes are so tight, they brand my flesh. The tension in my shoulders from having my arms pulled behind my back… it’s pure torture.
From now on, for three days, my entire body convulses with pain. All I can think about is my hands, shoulders, legs! And again: Hands. Shoulders. Legs. God almighty! Hands! Shoulders! Legs! We hadn’t travelled far from Be’eri to the Gaza Strip, or between stops, so I know I’m not too far. Not far from home, not far inside Gaza. In the first two hours after being kidnapped, as they move us around, before reaching this house, I’m consumed by fear, by pure survival. My body and mind haven’t processed what’s happening yet. But once it starts to sink in, and the adrenalin wears off, the pain – the real, physical pain – takes over. All I want, all I need, all I crave is to bring my arms forward. It’s killing me to have my shoulders stretched backward like this.
The terrorists who brought us here leave. An older man, who must be the father of the house, keeps watch over us. Through my blindfold, which keeps slipping a little, I make out a tall, broad, strong man with white hair. He brings us food once or twice a day, placing slices of pita in our mouths. I beg him in Arabic to loosen the ropes or at least tie my hands in front of me. He refuses. “Go to sleep,” he keeps repeating. “I can’t sleep like this,” I tell him. He still won’t budge. My eyes begin to adjust to the room they’ve put us in. It’s an ordinary children’s bedroom. There’s a small bed, two mattresses on the floor for us, a dresser, and a desk with shelves. There are two large windows: one facing south, the other west. The windows are draped with hessian, branded with the letters: UNRWA.
Whenever we need to pee, the father or one of his sons grabs us, takes us out of the room, leads us to the bathroom, and pulls our boxers down so we can relieve ourselves. It’s humiliating. You’re standing there, exposed, blindfolded, hands tied, legs bound, performing the most basic, private act after someone has stripped you down, knowing his gaze is fixed on you the whole time. I can’t sleep that first night. Next to me, Khun never stops crying, and I try to calm him down. I’m play-acting for his sake. When he calms, I feel myself again. My heart is pounding. My heart is aching with worry. With homesickness. With fear. And my body? My body is screaming: Help!
After three days in captivity, two men enter our room. They remove our blindfolds and untie the ropes. I breathe a sigh of relief and feel my shoulders breathing with me. They are both armed with Kalashnikov rifles. They eye us up, and I eye them up back. They look young, around 30. One is shorter, a bit stocky, calm. The other, with a prominent scar across his face, is taller and more sullen. The stocky one is called Sa’id; the sullen one is Sa’ad. Later, in the tunnels, we call Sa’id “the Mask”, and the sullen one “the Cleaner”. But for now, we’re not in the tunnels: we’re in a family home.
Slowly, I start to study them. Bit by bit, I learn everything. With the keen senses of a man focused on survival, I smell, I watch, I feel. At first, the Cleaner, the Mask, the father, and the sons speak in short, terse, detached, suspicious sentences.
As the days go by, they talk more, I listen more, they listen more, and I talk more. And the Mask really likes to talk. He gives me mini-lectures about how he sees the world. How they see the world: that this land is theirs – all of it. And that I should go back to Morocco or Yemen, where my grandparents came from.
November 2023
On day 51 of captivity, the Mask comes to take me. I say goodbye to Khun. From what my captors tell me, he is about to be released. I ask him, when he gets back to Israel, to tell people that he was with me. I hug him, and we go up to the family’s floor and enter. It’s my first time in this part of the house. We cross it to exit through the front door. The living room is dark. Keep your head down, the father and the Mask tell me.
From the corner of my eye, I glimpse the wife sitting on the couch and little Yusuf [a child of the house] standing and watching me. The Mask unlocks my leg cuffs, puts a hat on my head, and orders me not to speak to anyone. No one. Even if someone addresses me, I mustn’t respond. I nod, and we head outside: me, the Mask, and the father. It’s a little chilly. I walk close to them, afraid. Afraid that someone on the street might recognise me, that I’ll be attacked, that a frenzied mob will grab me and break me to pieces. My leg is twitching. My breath is heavy. Another man and a woman appear. The man smiles at me and shakes my hand. They talk. The woman, veiled, stands next to me. But when the man speaks to her, she responds in fluent Arabic, and I immediately realise: it’s a man. I say nothing. After a few minutes, the Mask and the other man, who we’ll later call “Nightingale”, say we’re heading back home for now. The handover will happen tomorrow.
When we arrive, I’m left with the man dressed as a woman. He takes off the women’s clothing and the veil. I see a young, tall, bearded, long-haired man, with injuries all over his body. He looks at me. “Hello,” he says. “I’m Almog. Almog Sarusi.”
“I was at the Nova Festival,” he explains. The Nova Festival? Suddenly, I remember. There was a big music festival near Kibbutz Reim. I recall what I saw on TV on October 7, the videos of young men and women running in panic through the fields. We hug.
The next evening, we pack our belongings, say goodbye to the father of the house, cross the living room in darkness, and step out into the street. We proceed for several minutes in silence until we reach a mosque. Inside, the Cleaner and Nightingale take us to a side room and open a trapdoor. Beneath the trapdoor is a shaft. A shaft leading into a dark tunnel. I tremble. I clutch myself and shake my head: No. No, no. Not a tunnel.
I look at the Cleaner. “I’m not going down.”
“Go down, right now,” he growls. I look at him. I have a choice. To go into the tunnel… or die. There is always a choice. Always a choice. There. Is. Always. A. Choice. I can choose to end my life here and now. Resist until the Cleaner shoots me and I fall bleeding on the mosque floor. I can choose that. Just like I could have chosen to resist in my bomb shelter at home until they shot and killed me. Some made that choice. It is a choice. Even when you have no control over yourself, you always have a choice. I look at the Cleaner, and I choose: I’m going down. I start descending the ladder. The shaft is very narrow. After me, the Cleaner climbs down. Then Almog. Then Nightingale. Above us, the shaft is sealed. Below us, darkness opens.
Copyright © Eli Sharabi 2025. Extracted from Hostage, published on Oct 9 2025 (Swift Press, £18.99)
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