It’s Your Choice

Eli Sharabi, whose book Hostage — an accounting of his hundreds of days in the tunnel network, just released by Sela Meir Publishing — is the first real-time account of life in captivity by a released hostage. The emaciated body that we all saw standing on that Hamas platform after a year and a half of being shackled in iron chains, stands in stark contrast to the man now sitting here on the couch in a well-appointed Herzliya apartment. Today Sharabi has embarked on a public journey of choosing life anew every day, through faith, optimism, and hope. Since his release, he’s met with presidents and spoken on international stages — even US President Trump wiped away a tear when the two met in the Oval Office.

Eli Sharabi, who had been living on Kibbutz Be’eri since he was a teenager, married Lianne, a British citizen who had come to Be’eri as a volunteer at 19 and went on to work in a dental clinic. His brother Yossi Sharabi joined him on the kibbutz, married Nira, a nurse, and for decades the two families lived next door to each other. Eli worked as the community’s treasurer before becoming a financial manager of several companies outside the kibbutz, while Yossi worked at Be’eri’s printing press.

On a physical level, Sharabi completely lost control over his quiet, idyllic life on Simchas Torah 2023. From the moment Hamas terrorists stormed his home, tore him from his wife and daughters, and dragged him into a tunnel beneath the earth — nothing, seemingly, was in his hands. He needed permission to eat; he needed permission to use the bathroom, which was a complicated process as he was shackled; he was constantly beaten; he had to make do with a half-bucket of cold water for a shower once a month; and with a tenth of the calories a human body requires.

But Eli Sharabi was never truly captive. Because while his body was imprisoned, he constantly preserved his freedom to choose: to choose humanity, compassion, faith.

“Of course,” he says, “I didn’t choose to be kidnapped. I didn’t choose what happened in the massacre. But I always chose how to respond, what to hold on to. And most importantly, how to remain a human being, even in captivity. Even when they’re torturing you, even when there’s no food. Even when you crave just one more crumb, you have to know how to stay human. So in truth, you choose. You are constantly choosing. Even in a situation of no control, you create a measure of control through the choices you make.”

Sharabi’s captivity was indeed filled with choices — like his choice not to fight back when ten terrorists stormed into his home in Kibbutz Be’eri. A choice he hoped at the time would help save his wife and daughters. And even though during captivity he knew there was a chance that they had not survived, he kept choosing life — moment by moment — in an impossible reality.

“In the end, everything is a matter of choices. In every situation, you choose, on some level or another. You choose to lower your head when they humiliate you, not to answer back, because otherwise they might harm you. I never looked at death as an option. I always chose life. And when you become aware that it’s always you choosing, those choices also return a certain level of humanity to you. Even in those places, you can generate that humanity, you can find your inner point of choice.”

No Magic Formula

Sharabi was first held alongside a Thai worker and for over a year with fellow Israeli hostages Alon Ahel, Eliya Cohen, and Or Levy (he was released together with Or Levy and Ohad Ben-Ami, while Alon Ahel remains in captivity). For a time, the group found themselves alongside Ori Danino and Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who were later murdered by their captors in August 2024.

Eli Sharabi, the oldest in the group, quickly became something of a leader, a source of strength and comfort, especially for Alon Ahel, whom he took under his wing. Sharabi says that leaving him behind was heart-shattering.

“Alon was kidnapped from a bomb shelter,” Sharabi relates. “He was hit by shrapnel in his right eye and lost his vision. I’m 53, he’s 24. I assumed I’d be released before him, and from the beginning, I knew I had to give him tools to cope, so that he would know he has the capability to survive.”

Eli’s surviving brother, Sharon Sharabi, became a relentless face of advocacy for the hostages. While he knew that Yossi was dead, he held out hope for Eli’s survival. In his yarmulke, radiating emunah, he kept saying, “Eli chazak, Eli is a leader, a hero.” But here, in this Herzliya apartment, with  characteristic modesty, Eli Sharabi himself doesn’t really think those titles represent him. It’s more, he says, about life experience.

“I saw the difference in the tools I had compared to the younger fellows who were with me in the tunnels,” he says. “Maybe the life I lived gave me certain tools that allowed me to endure the captivity with greater mental resilience. I remember telling the younger ones who were with me, ‘We’re at zero ego. We have one mode: survival. We need to get back to our families. Nothing else matters.’ That’s the whole story. And I pray every day that Alon, who was with me for a year and two months, 50 meters underground, is managing to apply that now, on his own.”

I ask Eli if he often thinks about October 6, when his life was calm and orderly. What would he do differently if he knew what the next day would bring?

“I wish there were some kind of magic formula that could grant you just a few more minutes with your loved ones,” he says. “Because in the end, you realize that that’s what really matters. Underground, you don’t miss your big house, your car, your bank account. You miss your family. Your friends. You miss people. You don’t long for material things — you long for memories, for laughter, for experiences, for a hug. Maybe I didn’t hug my daughters enough. Oh, what I would give for one more hug. For one more minute with my wife, telling her how much I appreciate her. Or one more moment with my brother. I wish there were a magic formula….

“I used to be a financial manager, with a degree and professional accomplishments. But today, I understand that it’s people who give my life meaning. I understood it during captivity. To be there for others. To guide. That’s where meaning lies today.”

Living with Gratitude

Sitting with Eli Sharabi over a cup of tea, it’s hard to believe that just three months ago he was living in an alternate universe, only to emerge into the harsh reality of bereavement and loss. How does someone who was chained in iron shackles in a tunnel for sixteen months look at the world where the sun shines?

“Every action that seems most basic to us, like getting out of bed, walking down the street, or eating a slice of bread, is not basic at all when you’re a person who isn’t free,” he says. “The physical conditions were very harsh. No hygiene, constant humiliation, violence, shackled at the legs 24/7, broken ribs, iron chains cutting into your flesh. But even with all that, nothing bothers you like hunger. When will the next meal come? Even the tiniest crumb becomes an event. What you wouldn’t give for another half a pita. But faith and hope are what lift you above all of it, above the physical things. And that was something we didn’t miss — not a single day. We got up, we prayed, no matter what. And so all of life takes on a different meaning. The gratitude becomes something else.”

Eli Sharabi, a big fellow who weighed just 44 kilo upon his release, is someone who lost everything most precious to him, and still doesn’t stop giving thanks. A man who faced the depths of human evil and still chooses to focus on gratitude.

“Well, even fifty meters underground, I always had hope,” he stresses. “I remember telling the younger ones with me: ‘You can break down. You can cry. But you must not lose hope.’ For me, it was clear that I would survive this, that somehow, I would get out. Maybe in a month, maybe in two, even if it would take a year, it didn’t matter. And we stayed connected through the emunah that every Jew has deep down — whether it was through saying Shema Yisrael together, or the morning brachot that Elya knew because he’d grown up religious, or the Friday night Kiddush. We made sure to keep aside a quarter of a pita for Hamotzi on Shabbat, and on Motzaei Shabbat we would sing the Havdalah songs that I remembered from my parents’ house.

“I’m not a religious person,” Sharabi continues, “but this world isn’t foreign to me. I come from a traditional family. A lot of my childhood was spent in the beit knesset, in Shabbat and holiday prayers. On the kibbutz, we didn’t keep Shabbat in the classic sense, but every Friday night I would make Kiddush with Lianne and the girls, and we always joined Yossi’s family for a Shabbat meal.”

In the tunnels, those traditional spaces gave him strength. “Even in the early days of captivity,” he says, “I found myself murmuring the Shema over and over again — not thinking about the meaning, just repeating it like a mantra that seemed to surround me with protection. And every morning, Elya would recite the morning brachot by heart, which he remembered, and the rest of us would say Amen after each one. That’s how we would start every day. And then, no matter what we’d been through during the week — what arguments we had or didn’t have, what frustrations, what sorrow, what pain — no matter how we looked, how our space looked, how the toilets looked, what the air felt like, when we last ate or what we last ate, no matter how much darkness surrounded us, we’d gather and listen to Elya as he held a cup of water and recited ‘Yom hashishi….’  

“Before Kiddush, I would sing Eishet Chayil, thinking about my mother, my sisters, Lianne, Noya, and Yahel — hoping they were alive and safe. At the end of Shabbat, Elya would sing the Motzaei Shabbat songs he knew and we would join in. A lot of those songs I remember my father singing, and it gave me strength and a feeling of connectedness — connected to the Jewish People, to identity, to tradition, to my childhood, to my roots. It reminded me of my father, a white tallit during Shabbat prayers, the aron kodesh opening, a sefer Torah, a chazzan’s voice rising in song, a white cloth spread over the table. Everything that was so, so far away from where we were.

And then I’d imagine my homecoming — my mother, my sisters, my brothers, Lianne, the girls. The hugs. I would picture the people I love most, surrounding me in light, whispering: Shabbat shalom, Eli. Shabbat shalom. We’re so glad you’re back.”

Finally Free

By Yisrael Yoskowitz 

Keith Siegel shares the horrors of his own captivity, while waiting for good news about his friends left behind

HE was held captive by Hamas for 484 days, a year and a half of inconceivable survival:  wounded by gunfire, transferred between dozens of locations, squeezed into a deep underground tunnel shaft gasping for breath for months on end, excruciating hunger — all the while trying to gauge the mood of the senior terrorist leaders who determined if he’d live or die, starve or have an extra few crumbs, be beaten or given a reprieve. He even established a kind of warped relationship with Izz a-Din al-Haddad, the highest-ranking still-alive Hamas commander and head of the northern sector of the Gaza Strip.

Today I’m sitting with 66-year-old Keith Siegel in his new temporary home in his daughter’s community of Kibbutz Gazit, not far from Afula in Israel’s north. A cozy apartment, a quiet, pastoral setting, a new chapter in the life of a former hostage whose longtime community of Kfar Aza was destroyed when hordes of Hamas terrorists massacred dozens of his neighbors and dragged 19 of them — including Keith and Aviva, his wife of 44 years — over the border to the dungeons of Gaza. That’s where Keith Siegel would suffer for nearly a year and a half.

Siegel grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a quiet college town where his father, a physician, was a lecturer on public health. Keith came to Israel in 1981 on a summer program, stayed on to volunteer on a kibbutz, and met his wife, Aviva, who had made aliyah with her family from South Africa when she was nine. The couple moved to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, near the Gaza border, in 1983; as the kibbutz moved from a collective model to privatization, Siegel had carved out a comfortable career in international pharmaceutical sales. But the tranquil life they’d built came to a crashing halt at 6:29 a.m. on Simchas Torah 2023.

At 10:30 in the morning, four hours after the massacre began — when the entire country already knew what was unfolding in the south — the Siegels, barricaded in their safe room, assumed the IDF would come rescue them. Instead, Nukhba terrorists showed up, led them barefoot to the parking lot and forced Keith to unlock the code to their car. When he tried a delay tactic, the impatient terrorists shot him in the arm, shoved the Siegels into the back, and — passing the scenes of smoke, fire, and dead bodies — drove off to Gaza.

They were moved between several vehicles until they were finally placed in a black SUV, blindfolded, and taken into a building and from there into an underground tunnel, where they were joined by Chen Goldstein and her three children — Chen’s husband Nadav and their daughter Yam were brutally murdered that morning.

The group spent three days together inside the tunnel. The space was narrow, cramped, airless. A thin mattress was spread across the floor, and they huddled together, trying to sleep.

In those early days of captivity, Siegel says he tried to stay calm in order to preserve a shred of sanity. “From the very first moment, I tried to communicate with the kidnappers,” he says. “I did it in the hope that it would make them treat us better. I tried to be polite, calm, to sense where I could ease the tension. It was also for Aviva — to stay strong for her.”

A few days later, they were joined by captives Amit Soussana, Agam Berger and Liri Albag. “For a time, there were five of us together,” he says. “Living in unthinkable conditions: a tiny space, suffocating air, and complete uncertainty. We had no idea what would happen tomorrow — or even in the next hour.”

They were 40 meters underground, sealed in and cramped, with barely any air. “We simply couldn’t breathe. Even the smallest movement, even just walking a few steps to use the bathroom, made us gasp for air like we’d just run a marathon. After four days, with barely any food and just drops of water, we became completely dehydrated. Our bodies just shut down.”

Eventually, on the fourth day, they were given permission to move. “By that point,” he says, “we were no longer capable of standing, but the way out seemed almost impossible. We had to climb a rickety, unsecured ladder, straight up. Every move I made, I felt like I was about to fall backward. Somehow, I managed to stabilize myself and get out.”
The group was then taken to a small house located in a less populated area.

“We stayed there for two weeks. The conditions were slightly improved compared to the tunnel. Still harsh — but more bearable. After that, we were moved again. Aviva and Amit were put in one room, and I was taken to another one.”

On November 26, Aviva was released. Four days later, on Thursday, November 30, Amit Soussana was also released. They were told Keith would be freed the next day. But that day never came.

“There were three terrorists with me,” he recounts. “On Friday, December 1, they woke me up in a panic. They said we had to leave immediately because, ‘this place is no longer safe,’ and we were moved to an abandoned apartment.
“There, a drastic change occurred in their behavior. Until then, despite everything, they hadn’t used physical violence against me. But in the new apartment, something in them flipped. The commander of the cell became particularly aggressive. For four days, I wasn’t allowed to get up from the floor, except to go to the bathroom. While I was lying on my back, exhausted, legs folded, suddenly, without any warning, the commander approached me and began screaming, spitting, and kicking me again and again. Heavy blows to the ribs, without any reason. This went on for two full days.”

During his captivity, Siegel met several times with Izz a-Din al-Haddad — until recently, the brigade commander for Gaza City. After the deaths of the Sinwar brothers and Mohammed Deif, al-Haddad was appointed to lead Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Al-Haddad has survived several Israeli assassination attempts, and while two of his sons, his son-in-law, and his brother have been eliminated, he himself remains alive.

For some reason, which is still a mystery to Keith Siegel, al-Haddad took a sort of interest in the American-Israeli hostage.

“Every time we met,” Keith says, “al-Haddad asked if I was being treated well and inquired about my well-being. Unlike the others, he also spoke fluent Hebrew. Most of the time he was cordial — except for once when he was displeased that Aviva had traveled to Geneva and, in media interviews, actually claimed that Hamas was abusing the hostages.”

Siegel says that al-Haddad sometimes even spent the night in the same apartment where he was being held — likely in an attempt to use him as a human shield against an Israeli strike. On one occasion, al-Haddad appeared in disguise, but he spoke to Siegal in Hebrew, somehow feeling safe in the knowledge that the hostage whom he’d taken a liking to wouldn’t betray him.

Siegel was moved between 33 different hiding places across the Gaza Strip. Sometimes he was held with other hostages, and he still shudders when talking about his “hostage buddies” who’ve been left behind: Matan Angrest and Omri Miran, who were held together with him for an extended period.

On the morning of Simchas Torah, Matan Angrest, an armored corps soldier from Kiryat Bialik, fought with his tank crew at the Nahal Oz outpost under heavy fire. During the battle, he was seriously injured and abducted while unconscious. Two of his crew members, gunner Itay Chen and tank commander Daniel Peretz, were killed and their bodies taken into Gaza.

Recently-released footage shows Angrest, bleeding and unconscious, being dragged out of the tank by a Palestinian lynch mob. In another video, he appears being interrogated by a Hamas operative, addressing the Prime Minister and his family, pleading for efforts to secure his release. Angrest was interrogated under torture, beaten, bound, and confined in a cramped, airless cell, yet despite his physical and mental condition, he was not released in any of the humanitarian deals, because he was classified as a combatant.

Omri Miran, 47, was kidnapped from Nahal Oz in front of his family and held in captivity with Keith Siegel for many weeks. Keith describes Omri as a noble and optimistic person who gave him emotional support during his most difficult moments. They were later separated, and Omri remains in captivity to this day.

After they were separated, Siegel was moved into isolation, where he remained for six months. He was allowed to use the bathroom only twice a day: once at dawn, and once after nightfall. It was a true covert operation — descending three floors, walking silently to a small cubicle in the courtyard, constantly under threat. One of the captors would follow him closely, walking silently behind him, always armed, making sure he didn’t deviate from the set path.

Behind him, not too close, a flashlight flickered — just enough to see, not enough to reveal. They were always armed: a Kalashnikov wrapped in a blanket, a pistol tucked into a waistband.

And all that time, Keith prayed for a miracle. He would go to the bathroom and peek his head out, hoping that an IDF drone might spot him. In between, he spun dreams of a daring rescue mission. “Every night, when I went to sleep,” he recalls, “I’d tell myself: ‘Maybe tonight they’ll come.’ Every single night.”

But another day passed, and then another, and nothing happened. Then came Operation Arnon, during which the Israeli counter-terror unit Yamam, under the command of Arnon Zamora Hy”d, rescued four Israeli hostages from the Nuseirat refugee camp: Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv.

The orders given to Hamas operatives in the wake of that heroic rescue would later lead to the cold-blooded murder of six Israeli hostages who had been held with Yahya Sinwar in a transit tunnel in Rafah: Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lubunov, Almog Sarusi, and Carmel Gat. Assessments indicated that the murder of the six took place because IDF forces were approaching the area where they were held. Although the soldiers were unaware of their presence, the Hamas terrorists feared a rescue operation and received orders from Yahya Sinwar to execute them.

Keith learned of the horrifying massacre from his friend Omri Miran, who is still held hostage in Gaza. “When he told me about it,” Siegel says, “I immediately understood that I had to give up hope that the IDF would try to rescue me.”

On January 15, two weeks before he was released, Siegel was moved to another house. He was kept in complete isolation, locked in a small room. Although the food improved quite a bit in order to put a little more weight on his emaciated body, control was tightened — he had no idea he was about to go home.

Two days before the scheduled date, Izz a-Din al-Haddad suddenly appeared at the apartment and told him: “On Saturday, at ten in the morning, you’re going back to Israel.” Keith was surprised. All previous transfers had taken place at night. Haddad explained, “I personally arranged it so that you’d leave during the day, so that you’ll see light as you return home.”

He pulled out a box of chocolates with the brand name of “Aviva.” Maybe it was just a coincidence, but the symbolism deeply moved Keith. Haddad noticed his reaction and this arch-terrorist, with so much blood on his hands, instructed one of his men: “Bring another box like that as a gift for his wife, Aviva.”

On Shabbos morning, the terrorists indeed took him out of his hiding place, put him in a vehicle, and began a winding journey through Gaza City. Every so often, they transferred him to another vehicle, documenting him in each one. This continued for several hours. Five different vehicles, five different armed escorts — each handing him off to the next — until the convoy suddenly stopped at a deserted beach. It was the first time in nearly a year and a half that Keith saw open skies, breathed fresh air, and felt the sun on his skin.

And there, with the sound of waves breaking in the background, stood Izz a-Din al-Haddad.

“We walked together, just the two of us, along the waterline,” Siegel relates. “When he saw that I was tense, he told me, ‘Smile, be happy, you’re going home.’ I tried. But I couldn’t. I didn’t really believe it was happening.”

Smooth-talking al-Haddad told him that he would soon appear onstage at a festive release ceremony in Gaza and instructed him to “wave to the crowd, smile, and thank Hamas.”

At the end, al-Haddad pulled out a camera and filmed Keith, who looked like he was on vacation at the beach, instructing him to give a “farewell” message. “Hi everyone,” a smiling Siegel says to the camera, first in Hebrew and then switching to Arabic (which he’d learned over the years in order to communicate with the Gazan workers on the kibbutz), “Today is a great day… here I am at the beach, and I want to thank Hamas for their hospitality…” That clip quickly went viral, part of additional footage showing released hostages “thanking” their captors and holding “graduation certificates” and “gifts” in their hands.

And then, just as al-Haddad had suddenly appeared, he suddenly vanished.

Al-Haddad’s behavior aligns with intelligence indicating that even while serving as the Gaza Brigade commander, he acted as Hamas’s propaganda envoy, creating a narrative that cynically and falsely portrayed Hamas as treating hostages responsibly, humanely, and compassionately. Behind the mask, al-Haddad is part of a terror machine that has refined deception into a strategy: He speaks Hebrew and smiles, while having entrusted the brutal violence, humiliation, and inhumane captivity to his subordinates.

After a short drive, Siegel, like the others preceding and following him, arrived at the “farewell ceremony” organized by Hamas. Siegel stepped onto the absurd stage and raised his hand to the barbaric crowd, looking around as if trapped in a strange dream. He raised his hand, but he did not say thank you. A few hours later, after 484 days in captivity, he crossed the border into Israel — finally free.

Special thanks to chareidi journalist Yisrael Cohen, an important advocate for the hostages still in captivity and their families, who helped coordinate this interview.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1065)