Eli Sharabi's visit

This week, we welcomed Eli Sharabi, a 53-year-old Israeli man who lived a loving life with his wife and two teenage daughters in Be'eri, a village in Israel near the Gaza border. On October 7, in a matter of hours, his life was completely transformed. His wife and daughters were brutally murdered, and he found himself in hell.

Even we, Israeli diplomats who have heard many sad stories from that cursed day, couldn't hold back our tears as Eli told us this week what he experienced for a year and four months. And all the while, we were reminded that there are still 58 Israelis there, in conditions that no other place on earth can match.

And yet, Eli isn't broken; on the contrary, he exudes faith and optimism. With a calm and serene tone, he told us a small part of what he experienced. When he was kidnapped from his home and taken to the first apartment where he was held, Palestinian civilians attacked him in a brutal lynching. We always emphasize that our conflict is with Hamas, not with the Palestinian people, and that's true, but events like this demonstrate that the intensity of hatred is a huge obstacle.

For a month and a half, he was held in an apartment, his hands tied behind his back and his feet tightly bound with rope. The pain in his shoulders and the deep wounds on his legs caused by the ropes were unbearable. Each day, he lost consciousness from the pain for two or three hours.

One day, he was taken to an underground tunnel. Other Israeli hostages were also being held there, all doing their best to fulfill one mission: survival. After a few months, three of them, seriously injured, were taken to another location. Eli thought they were being taken home to receive medical treatment in Israel, but to his horror, he discovered they had been executed in cold blood.

The last tunnel Eli was in was 50 meters underground. He bathed once a month, using a bottle or bowl of water. His legs were permanently shackled with heavy irons that prevented him from taking steps larger than 10 centimeters. The wounds on his legs were constantly in pain.

Eli always knew his fate was in the hands of his captors. From time to time, they beat him and broke his ribs. After these episodes of violence, he suffered intense pain for weeks and had difficulty breathing.

And the hunger. Sometimes he ate a plate of pasta a day. Sometimes a slice of bread. For a day or two, it didn't seem serious; for six months, it was unbearable. Sometimes he saved a quarter of a slice for the evening and ate it for fifteen minutes, crumb by crumb. At night, he hallucinated about family dinners, with love and abundance. It seemed like a distant fantasy. The terrorists often ate in front of him, enjoying the humanitarian aid packages that arrived in Gaza. He wasn't given anything. Eli weighed 70 kilos before captivity. After that hell, he returned weighing only 44 kilos.

From time to time, they spoke with the terrorists. We asked him at the embassy if the Hamas members guarding him thought they were going to win. “No,” he replied. “They know they won’t succeed in destroying the State of Israel. But they care about fighting, causing harm, destroying as much as they can. If that leads to the death of their own people—may Allah have mercy. Jihad, they told us, holy war, is more important than life.”

After everything he's been through and the enormous loss he's suffered, Eli continues forward with a clear goal: to free the other hostages. Every minute you're reading these words, there are people underground, terrified, dying, mustering every ounce of human strength to resist. They must be freed. Now.

* The author is a Public Diplomacy Associate at the Israeli Embassy in Mexico.