Eli Sharabi spent 491 days underground in the Hamas tunnels. He was chained to a metal pole and subjected to hunger and torture. "Yet I remained human", he says, recounting his ordeal.
Eli Sharabi was held hostage by Hamas for 491 days. After spending so much time in the tunnels of the Gaza Strip, the 53-year-old now says he loves looking at the sea and listening to the waves because that's what true freedom is to him. “We could only dream of this while we were 50 meters underground”. The sea also reminds him of his brother Yossi, who was also kidnapped on October 7, 2023, but died in an airstrike while in captivity.
Eli Sharabi cannot shake the memories of October 7, when hundreds of terrorists attacked Kibbutz Beeri. Then Eli hid in the shelter in the house with his wife and two daughters - aged 13 and 16. “The terrorists started shooting in the shelter. My wife jumped in front of one of our daughters - Noa. I shielded Yael with my body. We shouted at them to stop. The terrorist ordered me to be taken out of the house. That's when I knew they were going to kidnap me. I looked at my daughters and saw the fear in their eyes. I tried to calm them down, I told them I would come back”.
“To remain human until the end”
Before they took him to Gaza, Sharabi managed to see more than 100 terrorists in the houses around the area, he told ARD. He saw them set fire to the house of a friend of his, whom they killed. “The terrorists were laughing and taking pictures”, he says..
While in captivity, Sharabi says he decided that “if anything could kill him, it would be hunger”. Sometimes he was given a plate of pasta, but then he had to wait 24 hours before his next meal. “I counted every grain of rice. I shared the food with the other hostages. "When you know you're going to die, you want to at least stay human until the end and be good to your friends," the man says. A month after the kidnapping, Eli Sharabi was taken to one of Hamas's tunnels, where he met other hostages - for example, Hersh Goldberg Pauline and Ori Danino, who were later shot. They helped each other to survive and shared food.
Fear was there all the time
Sharabi believed it was important to have discipline and to follow some kind of routine. So they prayed in the morning and tried to eat at noon. Despite being chained to a metal chain for 485 days, Eli Sharabi says he tried to move a little and lift water bottles instead of weights to maintain his muscles.
In front of the German public media, Sharabi said that fear was his constant companion: "You see the loaded guns, they put them to your head, they threaten you. You are constantly filled with terror." What helped him to hold on was the promise he made to his wife and daughters - that he would return. The man says that he encouraged the other hostages to talk about something positive every day to keep their sanity - for example, that they had tea that day or that they were not being harassed.
“If they get an order to kill you, they do it on the spot. You have to constantly show them your respect, be careful what you say. They were unpredictable. One day one of them got a call that his house had been bombed. He threw the phone on the ground. I was chained up. He started kicking me in the ribs. For three months I could barely breathe and couldn't get up," Sharabi says.
The thought of his family gave him strength
Eli Sharabi is writing a book about what he went through - "491 Days", and in it he says that he came up with nicknames for the Hamas terrorists. One was the Triangle, another - the Circle, and a third - the Mask. In his memoirs, the man tells in detail about the torture he was subjected to and how the terrorists said he would stay there for 20 years until their families and country forgot about them. "One day I cut myself with a razor blade and smeared the blood on my face, pretending to faint. I wanted them to think I was dying and not have any power over me. A week later, I would get extra bread, which I would save for later. It was a good week,” Sharabi says.
One day, one of the terrorists told him that he had seen his family on television. That was the only time Sharabi cried, he told ARD. When he was released from captivity after 491 days, the man weighed only 44 kilograms. However, the thought that he would see his family again sustained him throughout. When he was released, he asked where his wife and daughters were. The Israeli soldiers told him that they would talk to his mother and sister. That was how Sharabi learned that his wife and two daughters were not among the living. He later learned that they had been killed on October 7.
Sharabi does not want to return to the kibbutz
At his family's graves, he asks for forgiveness for failing to protect them. But he also tries to look ahead. Many of those who lived in the kibbutzim along the Gaza border, like Sharabi himself, do not want to go back there. That goes for him too. “If Hamas continues to control the Gaza Strip, everything will remain the same. They will never recognize Israel. They want to destroy it - they told us over and over again. That they will come back and kill us”.
Eli Sharabi says there is nothing he can do to bring his family back. “But I cannot let this control my life. When I was kidnapped, I lost control of my life. But during those 491 days, I thought I had a choice in how I would react to the terrible things that were happening to me, and that I could count on something - my faith and my family. I was faced with a choice and I remained human. That's the most important thing for me”.