‘It was very tough but I love life’ – ex-hostage whose family were killed on 7 October

A former Israeli hostage whose wife and children were killed by Hamas in the 7 October attacks, has said he is “trying to be positive” after his release earlier this year.

In a rare interview, Eli Sharabi, who became one of the most high profile of those taken when gunmen stormed into Israel two years ago, was reflecting on discovering, after his release, that his family had been killed.

He also expressed concern that the latest peace plan to end fighting between Israel and Hamas could fall through and said the lives of the remaining 20 living hostages were being put at risk by the continued Israel-Gaza war..

Mr Sharabi told his former captors, Hamas, to sign the deal for “their people…and the Middle East… War is wrong and awful for both sides”.

“We have to keep hope” that there will be an agreement, he added.

The 20-point peace plan, agreed by US President Donald Trump, and Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, proposes an immediate end to fighting and the release within 72 hours of all hostages, in exchange for hundreds of detained Gazans and Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Hamas officials have indicated they will reject it.

Hamas still holds the body of Mr Sharabi’s brother Yossi, who he is desperate to return home for a burial, as well as his friend, 24-year-old Alon Ohel, who was held with him in tunnels deep beneath Gaza.

Having spent 491 days in captivity, Mr Sharabi discovered only on the day of his release in February 2025 that his wife Lianne, and daughters, 16-year-old Noiya and 13-year-old Yahel, were no longer alive – shot dead after he was taken.

When they were not there to greet him on his return to Israel, he broke down as he realised “the worst scenario happened”.

About 1,200 people in Israel were killed on 7 October when Hamas gunmen stormed through the border, while 251 others were taken hostage.

As the second anniversary approaches, Mr Sharabi has told BBC News about his ordeal and what is motivating him to rebuild his life.

In central Israel as the sun sets, Mr Sharabi, 53, stands looking out at the calm Mediterranean Sea. As he breathes in the sea air, such freedom felt distant earlier this year as he fought starvation, abuse and violence.

On that 7 October morning, the Sharabi family hid for hours in their safe room in Kibbutz Be’eri, an Israeli community of about 1,000 people close to the Gaza border. Nearly one in 10 people in Kibbutz Be’eri were killed or taken hostage that day.

As Hamas gunmen burst in and shots rang out, he and Lianne, born in Bristol, England, threw themselves on their daughters.

He says they told the gunmen that Lianne, Noiya and Yahel all had British passports, but they dragged him out of his home.

“I understood it’s the moment I’ve probably been kidnapped. So, I just turned my head towards my girls and shouted ‘I’ll be back’ – and that was the last time I saw them.”

Mr Sharabi, the kibbutz’s former business manager, described how he was first taken to a mosque in Gaza where he was attacked by Palestinian civilians.

“My eyes were blindfolded, but I could hear men and children and they started to lynch me with their bare hands, and the kids’ shoes start to hit me when I was on the ground.”

For almost all of his 16 months in captivity he says he was tied up – first with ropes to his wrists and ankles, then with iron chains. The pain caused him to pass out.

But he says he was determined to survive, even when he struggled to breathe for a month after he says his captors had beaten him and broken his ribs.

“It’s scary. It’s humiliating when the freedom is taken away from you,” he recalls.

“You need to ask the permission to breathe, to talk, to go to the toilet. You need to beg for food, water, everything. But I promised my girls that I’d come back to them, and they love life.

“So I said, I don’t care what’s going to happen. I’ll be back to my family with hands or no hands, with legs or no legs. I really, really believed from the first moment I will survive that.”

Mr Sharabi says he was taken into Hamas’ network of tunnels, where he describes spending months with three other hostages in cramped, inhumane conditions with little sanitation or food.

For the final six months he says they were given only one meal a day which would often be just one and half pieces of pita bread. “Starvation was the worst thing… you eat the crumbs on the carpet,” he says.

After he lost more than four stone (25kg) in weight, there was worldwide shock at the images of his weak and emaciated state when he was finally released.

He was told by his captors of his impending release a week before it happened. He was also told his brother had been taken hostage and had died in Gaza, probably in an Israeli attack. As this freedom approached, he dreamed that he would move with Lianne, Noiya and Yahel, to England, near his wife’s relatives.

When the day of release came, Hamas paraded him on stage in a televised ceremony, surrounded by dozens of gunmen. He says he was made to say in this ceremony how much he was looking forward to seeing his family – but those watching knew something he did not.

The joy of release soon gave way to devastating reality as he was welcomed back to Israel.

“The social worker approached me and said: ‘Your mother and your sister are waiting for you’. I said to her ‘Please bring me Lianne and my daughters.’ And she said ‘Your mother and your sister will tell you’. And of course, you don’t need to tell anything anymore. It’s obvious what happened, the worst scenario happened.

“I cried for a few minutes, and I said to myself ‘I can cry all day, but it will not help me to bring back Lianne, Noiya and Yahel. And I need my family with me’. So, I said to the social worker ‘Come on, let’s go and hug my mother and sister.'”

The former hostage’s composure slips as he remembers the first phone call he made as a free man to his wife’s parents in Wales, to share his grief. It was a “very emotional” but “important” call. The funerals of his family were held in Israel while he was still in Hamas captivity not knowing their fate.

Mr Sharabi has shown remarkable resilience in the months since. He has campaigned across the world for the hostages – even meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office. “I ask him to finish the job and help all the others to come back as well,” he pleads.

He feels Trump was instrumental in helping secure his release in a hostage deal in February, echoing the US president’s vocal pressure in recent months on Israel and Hamas to find peace.

Asked by the BBC if he was worried the new peace plan might not happen, Mr Sharabi, speaking on Wednesday, replied: “Of course – very worried. Probably two days ago we were sure it’s very close, but it doesn’t look that close, unfortunately. Maybe I don’t know a few things, but I’ll be glad to be surprised.”

He said the proposal was “very good news” and people must “not lose our faith that one day there will be an agreement”.

He says he knows all too well what horrors the hostages are still experiencing as Hamas refuses to release them and Israel has expanded its military campaign. So far, more than 66,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

“Everybody knows when the war continues it puts the hostages’ life in risk. That’s not a secret. For me, when I want all the 48 hostages back today, tomorrow, I just want it to stop… War is awful, people are suffering from war, but we can’t forget who started that, and who’s the bad guy and who’s the good guy.”

He has written a book titled Hostage to ensure people are aware of his ordeal. Lianne, an avid reader, used to tell him he didn’t read enough – so he thinks she would be proud.

Though it is hard to carry on without his family, he says he doesn’t need memorial days to remember them.

“Yossi, Lianne, Noiya and Yahel are with me every day in my life, every moment. But I’m quite sure they will be alongside my life, not instead of my life.

“I don’t have the privilege to stay in bed and cry all day after my family and my friends fought for me for 500 days. It’s unacceptable for me to do it.”

In Israel, strangers approach and tell him he is a hero. His time as a hostage has strengthened his resolve to live despite the loss of his family.

“It was very tough, but I really, really love life… I’m trying to be positive. I’m working on that.”

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