I read Eli Sharabi's book so you don't have to
He describes the morning of Oct 7 as just another mundane day. It was the same week both of his daughters had their birthdays, so all the ballons from both of their parties were still up. Noiya, who was 16, had her birthday on Oct 1, while Yahel, 13, had her birthday on Oct 3. The family had heard about the Nova music festival massacre and the one on neighbouring kibbutzes through WhatsApp. So while his wife Lianne, Noiya and Yahel were hiding their safe room, he was making tea since it was a habit Lianne, a British citizen, passed down to their daughters. Eli's brother Yossi also lived in Kibbutz in Be'eri. Yossi also got abducted to Gaza, but he was murdered in captivity and his family survived the massacre.
Yossi was a year older than Eli. They are two of five siblings. Yossi came to Kibbutz Be'eri sometime after Eli and Lianne moved there. Eli and Lianne met in 1995 and married in England. It was normal for them to go back to England every Christmas to meet with Lianne's family. As for his daughters, he says Noiya was always mature for her age and her teachers often forgot how young she was because of that. She spent time volunteering with autistic children and became attached to them. It was enough that Noiya had plans to become a social worker to work with disabled children. She was described as being an all around well behaved kid and fairly quiet.
Yahel was a bit different. She was described by her teachers as smart but lacking motivation and kind of a thrill seeker. It was easier for her to gain motivation after she was put on Ritalin. In one conversation Eli describes having with fellow hostage Alon Ohel, we learn Yahel wanted to go skydiving for her twelfth birthday and Eli and Lianne caved in because it was impossible to say no to Yahel. He describes the family just standing on the ground nervous while Yahel was having a great time skydiving. She was one of those kids.
Lianne moved to Israel in 1995 to volunteer on a kibbutz and met Eli in a bar on a Friday night. Someone they both knew introduced her to him and told him she had a crush on him so they met in person and started a relationship. She, like any British person, enjoyed drinking tea each morning and raised her daughters to enjoy drinking tea. Her birthday was also in February, much like Eli's. Hers was on the 20th while Eli's is on the 13th.
Eli pleaded with the terrorists who invaded to spare Lianne, Noiya, and Yahel as they were British citizens, but they weren't spared. The three are buried near where Eli's sister Osnat lives.
During the first couple of months of captivity, he was held with a Thai hostage named Khun. Khun didn't speak English, Hebrew or Arabic. So Eli was in the position of acting as emotional support to Khun while the two of them were being held captive by a well off Gazan family. It must have been quite surreal to have been in Eli's position. He says he is aware that his captors were human beings, but that they still are extremists and even if he did form something resembling a friendship with them, he could not care less if they are dead or alive.
One moment that stood out to me was when he was held by this wealthy family and one of the family members told him he was not like other Israelis. Eli was too nice compared to others. A man with a murderous ideology says Eli, a regular Israeli normie, is too nice compared to other Israelis. Yeah.
Khun, from my understanding, was released during the first ceasefire in November 2023. Eli was transferred to one of the tunnels. He says he got into this particular tunnel through a mosque. He was held with Or Levy, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino. Hersh gave the rest of them the strength to go forward with the phrase "He who has a reason has a how." I know Or Levy got that phrase tattooed after he was released. Eli reveals that after he and Or were separated from Hersh, Almog and Ori, he assumed they had been released only to find out just very shortly before his release that Hersh, Almog, Ori and three others were murdered in a Hamas tunnel in August 2024.
The majority of the time he spent in captivity was with Or, Eliya Cohen and Alon Ohel. Eli acted as a father figure to the others as he was the oldest. He and Alon formed the closest relationship. In this tunnel, the men were fed only a pita and a half at most a day, plus some rice and hummus. They had very little privacy, even when they had to use the washroom. Eli says he saw his captors eating food from UNRWA containers meant for civilians.
He describes the hunger as being so bad at one point, the four decided to fake Eli being ill so they could trick their captors into feeding them more. This worked, but only for a week.
He also describes the tunnels as being incredibly filthy, and that maggots did get into what little food they had. He describes being beaten by his captors, and how they could tell when things were going well based on how they were treated and the tone of the conversations from outside their room in the tunnel.
The four kept themselves entertained through a backgammon game Hersh had built while in captivity and left behind when they were separated and through a Leigh Bardugo book in English. Eliya Cohen learned English through reading Leigh Bardugo.
Eli also says his captors were hoping Trump would get elected during the election because they wanted a ceasefire, which happened in January 2025. He says his captors revealed to them in which order they would be released: Or and Eli first, Eliya next and then Alon in April during Phase 2. When Alon heard he would be released last, he was incoherent and in tears at the idea of being left alone with their captors. Yes, they did figure out which captors would be kinder to them, but at the end of the day, if it came down to it, none of them would hesitate to kill any of the four. Eli did try to comfort him, but to no avail.
Eli and Or were transferred to be with Ohad Ben Ami, a friend of Eli's from the kibbutz. This was how Eli learned about his brother being dead and captive and about the deaths of Hersh, Ori and Almog along with Carmel, Eden and Alex. And this was around the same time he found out children were taken captive as well.
The hostage release ceremonies were rehearsed before they were eventually released for real. When Eli, Or and Ohad were released into the custody of the Red Cross, he describes being angry with the workers for not coming and seeing them at the very least. They were wondering where the Red Cross had been the whole time they were captive since they were never seen once. FWIW, Ukraine has said something similar about the POWs taken captive by Russia as well.
It was not until they were in Israel with a social worker that Eli learned that his wife and daughters were dead. The social worker had told him his mother and sister would be there to see him and that was when he knew they were dead, otherwise they would've come to see him.
The book ends with him visiting his wife and daughters' graves and breaking down there. He says the medical team, some psychologists and his sister were there with him the first time he went to visit their graves.
