BREITBART | Published February 28, 2025
Freed Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi has described the conditions in which he was held by Hamas in Gaza, including torture and starvation that caused him to lose 40% of his body weight until he was released earlier this month.
Sharabi, 52, only learned upon arriving in Israel that his wife, Lianne, and his two daughters, Noiya, 16, and Yahel, 13, were murdered by Hamas on October 7, 2023, during their terror attack on the community of Kibbutz Be’eri.
He looked so emaciated upon his release that even President Donald Trump expressed shock from afar, saying that the Israeli hostages looked “like Holocaust survivors.” And indeed, Sharabi’s account reinforces that parallel.
The Times of Israel reported:
Sharabi, who lost over 30 kilograms (66 pounds) in captivity — some 40% of his body weight — and weighed just 44 kg (97 lbs) upon his release, said terrorists held the four hostages in iron chains and sometimes beat or humiliated them, and that they subsisted for months on a single plate of pasta each day.
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He said the hunger pains were unbearable and that getting his captors to give them a dried-out date or a quarter of a piece of bread felt like a victory.
Sharabi reflected on the miracle of simply being able to open a refrigerator, once back in Israel, to eat:
Sharabi also spoke about meeting American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who left a lasting impression that helped other hostages endure: “Hersh told us a sentence that stayed with us, and gave us strength, and didn’t allow us to lose hope — I knew him for two days and he gave me a sentence that stayed with me — he said: ‘When there’s a why, always find the how.’”
The first phase of the hostage-and-ceasefire deal with Hamas ended this week, with 63 hostages still in Gaza, of whom 24 are thought to be alive. Negotiations are under way for the release of the remaining hostages.
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SOURCE: www.breitbart.com
RELATED: Brother of freed Israeli hostage says Hamas captors ate full meals and laughed as he was starved
‘Imagine your worst nightmare’: Brother of former Israeli hostage tells CNN about the conditions in Gaza
CNN | Published February 28, 2025
Held hostage in a tunnel under Gaza for nearly 500 days, Or Levy – starved of sunlight, unable to stand up straight, not knowing whether his wife was dead or alive – would often watch, hungry, as his Hamas captors ate the food he was denied.
“He was starved. All of them (hostages) were starved. They barely ate, they barely drank,” Michael Levy, Or’s brother, told CNN in an interview.
The captors ate “chicken, meat – they had everything,” while his brother and the others he was held alongside “were getting nothing,” Michael said. The Hamas fighters “even laughed when they saw them looking” at their meals, he added.
After emerging from the tunnels as part of a ceasefire deal earlier this month, Israelis were shocked by the skeletal state of Or Levy, Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi. Gaunt and haggard, the appearance of the recently released detainees, as well as their testimonies, have raised fears about the wellbeing of those remaining in Gaza, as the first phase of the ceasefire nears its end and the next remains uncertain.
Or, 33 on the day of his capture, was dancing with his wife, Einav, at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led gunmen poured over the border into southern Israel. Einav was killed in the rampage – something Or had long suspected, but did not know for sure until his release 16 months later.
Over that time, Israel has laid waste to Gaza, in an offensive it said was aimed to free the remaining hostages and render Hamas incapable of governing the enclave or posing a military threat. Israel has been criticized by rights groups of stemming the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, leaving Palestinian children to die of starvation. United Nations experts also warned of famine in the strip, before the ceasefire deal helped get some aid to the 2.1 million people living there.
Asked whether his brother may have been denied food because of shortages in Gaza, Michael said this did not explain why the Hamas captors ate well.
“They were intentionally starved. It’s as simple as that. The terrorists next to them ate all the time,” he said, relating what his brother had told him about his time in the tunnels. Hamas laughed when the unfed hostages looked at their full meals.
Michael Levy told CNN that he and his brother are “not the same” as they were before October 7, 2023.
Michael said the water his brother was given was rarely clean enough to drink, the tunnel was not tall enough for him to stand up in, and there was no natural light. “Those are the most horrific conditions that you can imagine,” he said.
In a statement to CNN, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the group “dealt with the prisoners in accordance with international law” and had “provided them with food at a time when there was a famine in the Strip.”
The spokesman said Or Levy’s was “a special case due to special security circumstances, and we must look at the rest of the cases that were in excellent health despite the circumstances.”
Also starved of news from the outside world, Or only learned of Einav’s death after he was released. “He did not know. He assumed, and asked, and we told him,” Levy’s mother, Geula, told Israeli media.
While the couple were at the Nova festival, Einav’s parents were caring for their son, Almog, who was two years old at the time. Michael said they wanted to reintroduce Almog to his father slowly – first a phone call, then a video one, before meeting face-to-face.
“We were worried that he might be scared, or he won’t recognize him or something like this – but it was like they were never apart,” Michael said.
Almog asked his dad what had taken him so long to come back. Or “just hugged him, he couldn’t really respond to it. I mean, how can you respond to it?”
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