Ask Haviv Anything - Episode 49: Finding hope in the tunnel of Hamas, with Eli Sharabi

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

On October 7, 2023, Eli Sharabi's home was surrounded by Hamas terrorists. As he was dragged into Gaza, he shouted to his wife Leanna and two daughters Noiya and Yahel that "no matter what they do to me, I'll be back."It was only in February 2025, as he arrived back in Israel after enduring 491 days of physical and psychological torture at the hands of his captors, that he learned that his family was murdered that day.Eli's new book, "Hostage," is the first comprehensive account of the experience of an Israeli hostage. It contains unique insights about the experience of captivity, about how hostages supported one another and searched for hope in the dark tunnels, about the world-conquering fantasies and fondness for American movies of their Hamas captors, about near-lynchings by ordinary Gazans, about Hamas's expectation that the war that followed their attack would be a short one and their desperate hope that Trump will force an end to the war.This episode was sponsored by Doug and Fabienne Silverman in memory of the Jewish community of Rhodes, which was all but destroyed in the Holocaust. Fabienne’s mother Maggy’s family came from the ancient Sephardi community on the island, which the family visited in the summer of 2025 to learn about their roots.If you like this podcast, please join us on Patreon to support our work: https://www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [e-mail]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to a very special episode of Ask Habib Anything. We are recording on October 7, and I have with me, Elie Sharabi, a man who spent 491 days in Hamas captivity after he was taken from Kibbutz, Be'eri, a man who lost his family on October 7. We're going to dive into all the difficult pictures. I think Eli entered Israeli consciousness most powerfully in his release. Everybody knew the names and we've talked about, but seeing his emaciated form, how he was treated by Hamas, we're going to talk about that, about the family,

about his extraordinary new book, hostage. It was a runaway bestseller in Hebrew, and it is now out in English. And it has so many rich, complex insights. It's the first book published by a hostage to come out of Hamas captivity. And so let's get into it. Before we dive into the conversation with Eli

on this, two-year anniversary of the October 7 massacre. I want to tell you that we have a sponsor this week that is, I think, very powerful and poignant. It's a family that took the time to tell itself, to tell its new generation, its own amazing story in the 20th century. And I want to thank them not just for the sponsorship, but for sharing that story. The 20th century sent a lot of Jews on very strange and unexpected paths. They started out not speaking generally English and Hebrew and ended up with them.

almost all of them speaking either English or Hebrew, and those many torturous paths they made to many different places in the world is also part of the story of this family. The episode was sponsored by Doug and Fabienne Silverman, in memory of the Jewish community of Rhodes, a Sephardi community, where Fabian's mother, Maggie's family, came from. Much of the community perished during World War II when the community was rounded up and sent to Auschwitz.

Fortunately, Fabian's grandparents were among those who fled to Africa. They wound up in the Belgian Congo, Maggie's father and uncles were a committed Zionist. They actually worked with the Irgun, with the Etzal, in Central Africa. For example, in the operation to free the former Irugun chief commander, Yaakov Miridore, from prison in British-ruled Uganda after he was sent there by the British to get him basically out of the land of Israel, out of Palestine. Much of the family eventually made Aliya, although Maggie met Fabian's father, Jose, in South Africa,

and they moved to the U.S. in 1969 instead of Israel. Doug and Fabien sponsored this episode in honor of their family trip to Rhodes in the summer of 2025 to show their children where their great grandparents lived and where their ancestors made and built an amazing Jewish community going all the way back to the Inquisition, a community that is no longer here. Thank you for that sponsorship. I want to invite everyone to join also our Patreon. If you're interested in asking the questions that guide the topics we talk about, please join us. There's a great discussion forum there. I participate in it. We have some fascinating, interesting people who are constantly bringing in new and interesting information, links and things that we all share. You also get to join our monthly live streams where last time it was two straight hours, I answer all the questions that you bring live.

It's fun. It's always meaningful even when it isn't fun because sometimes we talk about great tragedies. Join us at www.p.com slash ask Chaviv Anything. The link is obviously in the show notes. Let's get to it. Before we get into October 7, which on this day we all remember, and we Israelis who sat on our WhatsApps and followed hour by hour, Israelization dawned of the scale of what was actually happening and of the collapse of the Israeli military in that moment. We all experienced that and we all remember that, almost that hour by hour on this day.

nobody experienced it more closely, more brutally, more catastrophically than Eli Shalabi. Eli, thank you for joining me on this day. It's my honor. Thank you very much. You have this new book out. I have seen, you know, many interviews with you. You relate powerfully, painfully, a lot of what happened. Barry Weiss interviewed you on the honestly podcast at the free press.

And some of that story is there. And I urge people to go see it. Maybe we'll even put it in the show. so you can get there quickly. I want to ask you why. You wrote a book in Hebrew to Israelis. A lot of people have been released. A lot of people have been gotten out.

They haven't been writing books. Why tell your story? What do you want Israelis to know? That's for the Hebrew book. And what do you want the world to know now that it's out in English? First of all, I think it's a very important testimony from 491 days of captivity. You know, what happened to my family in October. seven and all the details and but it's much more than that it's about even then in all

this darkness in that period of captivity and I wanted people knows that you always can find some lights and that give you strengths to survive and just the thought of who you're surviving for give you a lot of strengths and and keep you alive that's a recurring theme in the book it keeps coming up how people actually deal even one hostage who was with you wanted to commit suicide and and how you create that space for hope I want to get to that part of the book also but I have to tell you the hardest part of the book is of course noya and and Yehel

your daughters. I can't even, I can't even ask a question. On October 7, you said to them, as you were being taken away, whatever they do to me, I will be back. And 16 months later, you come out, and that's when you learned that they were killed on that very first day in your home. And you have talked about them in ways I have kids, and my kids map onto yours very, very precisely. There was, Jehiel, the crazy one who forced you to go sky to, diving. No kid of mine has yet managed that, but so well done. And there was Noya, the quiet one, who volunteered with autistic kids. Can you tell us about them? They're amazing daughters, really, really good. They had great childhood in kibbutz, lots of

activities around the fields, very happy, you know, very happy with their friends and And each one of them were amazing on her way. Noia just loved to see kids that struggled and help them and see them and see them as they are. And she was fascinated about the things she can learn from them actually. and she loved every moment around them. She finished her duty of 50 hours from her school a long, long time ago, and she stayed with them more than two years. Even she had lots of homework and lots of duties in the kibbutz.

She loved music. It was our, you know, really like bonding times. for me and her go to concerts to Israeli music and and we talked about that and we laughed a lot at home and yeah hell yeah was very extreme girl she loves she like to play football you know and scuba diving she just finished her course we plan to go to dive in Thailand and And last week, I've just done it for her in Thailand. I did scuba diving for her.

And I remember her in every best I took underwater. And, you know, I remember all the time. I remember them smiling. That's what's important. Eli, this conversation feels like a violation. Me asking you about your life and everything you've lost. It's hard to do because I don't, but you yourself have wanted to tell this. You want to talk about them, and that's why this is, I want to, how do you go on?

Well, first of all, I love life and the life is continue, and I can't do anything, anything to bring back Noia, Jhael, Lian, my wife. if somebody would tell me to stay in bed and cry all day and bring them back, I would do that. But I know I'm very practical man and I know that I need to continue with my life to rebuild it and this is the best way to honor their memory and make them proud of me and that's what I'm doing since my release.

You talk in the book about Once you're taken by the Hamas terrorists who came into Kibbutzbari, you enter Gaza. And it was a planned, organized assault. You describe how the point the goal was to kidnap Israelis, civilians as hostages. And you saw a lot of things that drove you to the conclusion that, well, to some conclusions about Gaza and Gazins and Gazans society. For example, you were held in a house for the first 50 days. of a family. You were on the roof of this well-to-do family connected to Hamas, but nevertheless, civilians. You talk in the book about how you never considered trying to flee because the

population in God, the civilian population was so hostile, and you didn't think you could possibly flee into the civilian population of Gaza without being in more danger. And some of the most dangerous times you faced were when Hamas moved you between tunnels, because it meant passing through the civilian population. Your experience, literally Hamas bringing you in on October 7, they had to fend off Gazans, ordinary people trying to lynch you when they discovered that they were carrying an Israeli with them.

Can you tell us about that? What conclusions do you have you drawn from your experience? Not about Hamas and geopolitics and strategy and terrorism, but about Gazans. It was exactly like

you said. I remember that, you know, Hamas terrorists telling us that would be quiet and because they are scared that the civilians from outside will hear that we're not local in this house and they will come in and lynch us and kill the Hamas terrorists as well and so from my experience my own experience all the civilians I faced in this time in in captivity in Gaza I haven't seen any of them that they

uninvolved so-called from what we hear. Let me expand that. You are fluent Arabic speaker. You were one of the few who were fluent Arabic speakers before going in. And so you had also these very rich conversations which, some of the most interesting piece in the book for me,

things I had never didn't have access to was what Hamas guys were talking about in the tunnels. But before we get into that, so expand that to other sources of information, not just your personal experience, which by definition was very close to Hamas in Gaza. How do you understand God's in society? In other words, if we're talking now about, there's now peace talks, that, you know, with any luck with God's help, we'll get out Alon Oil and all the other hostages living in dead.

But we are now talking about the day after the future. What do you understand about God's and society as an observer and as someone who experienced it that we should know going forward? I understand that there's loads of ignorant about Israel and Israelis. So they talked really like, of course, they are brainwashed. They believe everybody wants to kill them all the time, that you wake up in the morning and say, you know, and think how you can kill more Palestinian today. and after they know me a little bit for a few days

and one of them said to me well I wish everybody would do the same like you and I said to him most of Israelis are like me nobody want to kill you and everybody want peace and to live next to you

and with you so you can see there's loads of ignorance especially among the young people because the you know the terrorist of 15 plus in their age most of them used to work in Israel and know a little bit about Israel I talked with them about priests in Tel Aviv and what they've done and people they knew in the past and how they remember them as a good people and you know

You analyze them all the time, so we divided them between the young and the grown-up people, because the young ones were more, they wanted to humiliate you every day, and they had lots of rage, and so it wasn't really nice to be there. were more radicalized. The young ones were more angry. They didn't live under worse conditions. I mean, by the time the war came, obviously, they did. But how do you explain it?

We're seeing radicalization among young people in the West. Because of social media algorithms and all this kind of stuff, what's driving, it's literally just that they didn't have, didn't experience Israelis as much as, you know, 30-year-old giants? Their brainwashed. They are brainwashed in their mosques by religious people, and they know really, really little about what's around them. So it's a problem.

It's a problem. You have to, if you want to change anything in the future, you have to readducate and all of them, you know. I guess the young ones would have been in a Hamas education system for 17 years, right? So if you're 20 in Gaza, that was. your high school, that was your middle school, that was your elementary school, something that wouldn't be true of a 30-year-old Ghazan, that would have been other parts, other, it would not have been quite as inculcated.

I think 40, 50 plus there are more, you know, experienced, the experienced Israelis in the past. You talk about Hamas, not just the civilians, the Hamas themselves, you play cards with them, you have these long conversations, you're in there almost 500 days. And they start coming at you with these political diatribes. They're going to conquer England. They're going to conquer the world. They're the spearhead of jihad, a world jihad after they take over the Jews.

And your conclusion is they're isolated and know nothing about the world. Tell us about that. What do they talk about in those tunnels? What is the conversation between Hamas guys themselves? Sometimes it's basic, you know, conversations about things, but every time in every conversation, it's end by that, first of all, they are going to come in the next year and the day after that, and the next day after that to finish their job about the Israelis, about the Jews. and then they expand that to there's no way but Islam in the world

so they're going to occupy Britain and the United States and France and Germany and that's what they said in every conversation and they were once watching a brand new movie

out of America with this guy Leonardo DiCaprio Yeah. And they were just so excited about this amazing new movie. And after they talked about it, you came to the conclusion that it was what? Yeah, it was one of them that he used to watch it with his wife, and he was very happy about that. And I saw, you know, I remember he said to me that he liked to dance,

but Hamas doesn't really like men, that dancing with women and things like that. and so I understood that he's not really believe in Hamas way. It just is a way to, you know, get some money from an organization that can give his family, you know, some food. The incentive structure forces everybody to be part of in one way or another Hamas. But you wrote that it was the movie Titanic. that they were still thrilled about this brand new American movie that's 30 years old. Brand new movie, yeah. It was 25 years ago, something like that.

As a sign of just their isolation, you found a society that was just deeply, deeply kind of cut off from the conversation happening in the rest of the world. You're right. Yes. Amazing. Amazing how people still in 23, 24. It was that time live, you know.

It's not, it wasn't 1970. or something like that. You have internet, you have, you know, everything that you can reach to information, but they are still going to mosque and brainwashed by religious things. There was one other thing that I thought was really fascinating was you were, you were underground in the tunnel with Eliakorin, O'Levi, and Alon Oil. Yes. And one of the things that the,

Hamas guys like to tell you was that all you had to do was go back to where you came from. Right? It was leave, occupied Palestine, and just go back. And you had an exchange where they said this to one of the guys was from, I think, Iranian Jew, right? A Persian Jew. And you said, where is it going to go back to? You think he can go back to Iran? That was such a fascinating little exchange. What they think about

us versus what we actually are. Can you tell us more about that? In other words, you said at the beginning also, they don't know much about us. what don't they know about us? How much, if they knew, what would they need to know for their own sense of this war, of this endless conflict to change? You know, first of all, when you're making these conversations with them, you have to be very careful for what you say. And you can't really, can say everything you can, you know, you think and you believe.

You need to play their, you know, their game now in this conversation. And so I just suggest them, okay, no problem. Elia will come back to Iran. I'll come back to Yemen. Each one of us, no problem. Just give us, just reassure us that we can go back there. And we will do. No problem.

And please, let know all the Israelis that can go to Libya and to Syria and to Lebanon, all these places that our grandfathers and grandmothers came from. and we will do it, no problem. This is the kind of the way that sometimes you took the conversation and to a little bit to challenge them. You know, you can't say to them

they are talking bullshit and all this. Do you think they understood that you were telling them this is something that can't happen or were they so ignorant of... Yeah, when you face them with... No problem. I'm willing to go back to Iran or to Iran

or to Morocco, no problem. I will do it. Just please give me the, that, you know, sign for me here and here and here, that I can do it. And I can live there and no problem. Because this is where my grandfather came from. You, and just to finish up with these really fascinating insights, there's so much more in the book about the Hamas terrorists themselves. You describe how, about it, at a year, I think, last October, roughly, you start hearing. them crying at night. They are, you describe them as exhausted by the fighting, by the losses, they themselves want to deal to the point where during the election,

the United States election, back in November, they're rooting for Trump to win. Hamas fighters are following the elections closely. They're hearing Trump talk about making peace, ending the war. They think he's a force that can do that, that he can force an end to the war, and they celebrate his inauguration in January. Tell us about that.

Well, first of all, they expected that after October 7, 2023, this war will take maybe a month or two, maximum. And they were very, very surprised, and they tell us all the time, Bibi is crazy, what he wants from us. Bibi is crazy. He killed enough. Why he doesn't want Hamas will be, you know, in the government of Gaza. All these questions they came to us and in all these times that they heard about, you know, about peace talks and in Egypt, in Qatar and all this, make them very happy because they wanted it to finish. and after a year what you said around September, October of 24

there were really they had enough they cried almost every night to their pillows and as friends of them just try to you know to cheer them up and they said it will finish soon and some of them had panic attacks from time to time

we could hear them all was not, you know, breathing and fainting. And they really, really counted about Trump to do something differently from Biden, and maybe he will stop maybe Netanyahu. And they counted the days until they swap. And so you can say it's maybe they were right, you know. and Trump did a few things differently from Biden because after it was elected,

it was a deal that I was released in this deal and other 32 hostages. And now you can see that when he wants to push this peace agreement, it can do that. But what do you think the Hamas rank and file think now? In other words, it's still, you know, we're in October. I think they're almost finished if you think, if you ask me. And they will take anything now to finish, you know, this war and to come to this agreement. And they've seen almost nothing left there. And, you know,

if you ask me, maybe some of them, some of them now regret about October 7. I think the more times we hear Hamas leaders like Razi Hamad speaking on CNN saying he doesn't regret it, the more we should understand that he's responding to a discourse within Hamas that is asking if it was worth it, if any of it was worth it. Do you think, how deeply do you think, how much do you think they regret it? From what you understand to them or? Well, and from inside to see the other, they can say a lot of things. There's a really, really big gap about what they're saying and how they feel, really.

And when they say they want to be Shahid like a holy man and to die for their land. But the minute that they put, they gave them the gun and said to them, okay, go up from the tunnel to fight. This is your time. You could see their fear in their eyes. start crying and all this. And we've seen it more than three or four guys that were with us. And it was a time that they needed to go to fight. And you could see their reaction.

So there's, you know, and they said they're not afraid to go to fight and all this. But they're still in 50 meters underground hiding. So there's different between what they say and what they feel. Did you ever see anyone other than Hamas in the tunnels? Were civilians ever allowed you in? This is something we know

didn't happen, but did it ever? Was anyone allowed to take to take shelter in those tunnels alongside the Hamas guys? I didn't. No, no, not at all. Not at all. And I was sold just only Hamas

there. So they didn't let anyone to, you know, to hide there or be protected there from the bombs. They took care of themselves. And especially we've seen, you know, how they steal the humanitarian aid from their own population, from the Palestinians.

We've seen dozens of boxes coming into the tunnels every week, every two weeks. And we've seen the sign of... Boxes you mean boxes marked with the UN, with the aid agency? UN and that arrived from Egypt and Turkey. We've seen all this food. Of course, we didn't eat from this food.

They ate four or five times a day, and we ate one meal a day. So they had enough food for themselves. So they did not show concern for the civilian population. It was always about Hamas. Yes. You write in the book about hunger, about the starvation, about the cruelty, the purposefulness of it, the mockery of it. At one point, you tell your captors that you are fainting from hunger,

and you're actually worried, and they bring a doctor who says they can continue to starve you. Do you remember that moment? Well, I remember that they coming to check us because we were begging for food all the time, and we fainted, and we show some, you know, some conundated. concern, you know, signs of our body and they brought the doctor and he checked us and they saw that blood pressure is not okay. But the commander there, who we call the Spitz in this book, said to him, well, they probably eat better than me and they're fine, don't worry.

That's what he said to the doctor. And the, but this doctor, I don't know if to use quotes, he let it, he gave them permission to continue to starve you. In other words, the point was to starve you. Well, yes, you know, he said, well, they maybe need the vitamins and all this, but they, for the meantime, even the blood pressure is high or low, it depends which one of us. My blood pressure was very high. it wasn't really concerned them and, you know, alone, Oil, his injury in his eye didn't really concern them,

and said to him, maybe we hope that you'll be blind all for all your life, for all your life. That was the answers for him. There was a moment where Aitamel Bengville, the minister who was in charge of the police in the Israeli government and also of the prison system, announced that there would be more recent, restrictions and harsher conditions for Nukba force,

Hamas, Nukba force fighters in Israeli prisons. Those are the people who spearheaded the actual invasion on October 7, Hamas' elite force. And that caused your captors to tell you that you're going to go down from two meals a day, which is what it was at the beginning, down to one. Have you spoken to Itemal, Ben-Gvill, in general, the pronouncements of that kind of, that kind of, belligerent kind of posturing by the Israeli,

by certain Israeli politicians, that's read, that's seen in those Hamas tunnels, that influences Hamas' treatment of the hostages? First of all, anything that Hamas watched television and radio and newspapers and everything from the Israeli media, So every time that any politician felt that he wants to, you know, to be proud for what he's doing something against the Palestinian or something like that affect us immediately. We felt that they said that to us.

That's fact. It's not something I'm thinking or I'm analyzing or something like that. they came and said that's what they said in the news so what we're going to do the same to you so that was

and I haven't spoken with Beitamar Ben-Gvier I don't need to speak with him for someone who says that I'm the voice of Hamas after I've been 491 days after my family were slaughtered

you know I can I don't need to to argue with him. I'm just saying the facts that happened there. And that's it. So I said to the Shabakh head and defense minister of Israel, I said to him, it's okay to do whatever you believe,

to do your job, just trying not to talk about it. because that's a fact immediately on the hostages. They can't help talking about it. They're constantly talking about it. And people like Githma Ben-Gvir do nothing but talk about it all the time. I don't want to drag you into politics, but specifically on the question of hostages. I do want to see just if you have a specific view,

do you think the government has done what it can? There are terrible, terrible questions about ending the war and continuing. the war with Hamas taking over Gaza. If we let hostages be the thing that ends all wars, they'll take more hostages. All of those questions, they're big, they're enormous, thank God I'm not Prime Minister of anything. But nevertheless, have they done what they could? Do you feel blame, anger, concern? Itamar Ben-Vevir is easy because he really is that kind of a ridiculous bully.

The fact that he's, you know, the fact that he's, the Prime Minister has made a minister of the police is its own question. But has the Israeli government done enough to get the hostages out? How do you feel about that? Again, I'm not a politician. I'm not going to give any grades, not to politicians, especially not a prime minister. He has his own way to run this state of Israel and to manage, you know, to be a manager of all this war. and what I think that can, you know, can end it one day or can end these threats on Israel and Israelis.

I'm sure we believe that. But, you know, you cannot ignore from the fact that I was there 500 days and still people there more than 730 days. and it's shocking. It's, you know, their families are really devastated from this situation, and we need to bring them back as soon as we can. And that's it. I guess my last question on the politics thing, and I swear I'm not going to drag you there.

What about just advice? What advice would you have for this? Israeli government other than not talking beyond what they need to talk so that it doesn't hurt hostages for no reason except for their own I don't know what appeals to their base is there any other policy advice advice on hostages in the future if this ever happens again any advice you have for the government on this very very painful and you know complicated question practical advice I would say that you have to to give information

that the other side prisoners are well-treated and you never hurt them and you know hurt them and things like that that is something that will affect directly on your hostages and and not give them harder times you know it's hell enough just like that to be 50 meters underground and all this hygienic condition that was awful. So we really, really tried to avoid from the rage and they were furious about some things they read in the Israeli media. That affects us, you know, immediately, you know, humiliations and violence and all this and especially food. Do you think the protests?

There's been a big debate among Israeli politicians, so the protests are making it harder to get you out by raising the cost that Hamas demands for you, or helping get you out. What is your take on? The protesters are honest. Definitely. Definitely. The protest helped us a lot.

Well, first of all, I think in the Israeli society, It was very, very important that the Israeli not going to see just come like that at home when there's 250 hostages that suffers in Gaza. And I'm really, really proud of every Israeli that have been in, you know, every week in this protests. And this protests, more than it bothered the government. The Israeli government, it gave loads of support to their hostages families, that they needed this support, that nobody forget their lovers. And for us, even we've been 50 meters underground, just to hear the Hamas terrorist just finished watching the news,

news and coming to us and says there's dozens of thousands outside in Tel Aviv on the roads and things like that and protests for you that gave us a lot of face that we one day one day will be released. You are in the car on being released about 200 days ago in February. binami is in the Red Cross vehicle with you. You're safe. You're sobbing. The Red Cross official, I think a woman from New Zealand, you describe her. Felicity, yes. Felicity. She turns to you Ghazins, ordinary Gossens, again. Now, I don't know if that particular case is ordinary Gossens in a sense that they're invited to this very carefully stage-managed Hamas release

ceremony. But ordinary Gossens are pounding on the door of the car. She turns to you and she says, you're safe, they can't get in, the car is armor-plated, you're safe now. And you are sobbing in gratitude that you're getting out. And Oad binami is absolutely furious. And he says, where were you? And you've since then, you've spoken to the UN, you've had interactions with the international community. Are you angry?

He was angry. Has the Red Cross and all of these international, you know, ecosystem of organizations, Do you think the world, we talked a lot about Israel, about the Israeli government, about protests, but what about the larger world? Do you think the world failed, you and the hostages? Definitely, all these organizations, I don't blame them, and I don't accuse anyone in my situation, not the UN and not the world and not the Israeli government, but they have responsibility.

It's something different, but then blame. And so each one of them take a responsibility about the hostage situation. And Red Cross definitely and the UN definitely. So why they, you know, why they exist and why if they don't have any influence about situation like that? And before that, you asked me about the Israeli government if I blame them and angry about that. So I'm not angry about anything because it doesn't help me to be angry. But definitely their responsibility, you know, their responsibility for October 7. And they're responsible for all this loss of life of people.

And me and the other 250 hostages being dragged towards GazaSprit. someone needs to be responsible for something? I think the most powerful part of the book is what you called hope as a muscle. You don't shy away from describing the very harsh reality, including fighting amongst the hostages themselves over food. I mean, just the degradation. You describe the starvation, the humiliation, and you also then begin to describe how you fought back

against the psychological degradation in addition to the physical suffering. You and the hostages decide not to take extra food until it's offered to everyone. You have rituals to get you through the day. One completely ridiculous ritual, which suddenly becomes, which is to say something good that happened to you

at the end of every day? 50 meters underground, in a Hamas tunnel. Tell us about that. What is this hope as a muscle that you have to exercise? Well, you have, you don't have much, you know, 50 measures underground. You don't have much. Anything is taken from your freedom, your freedom to go to the bathroom without permission, to eat, to drink when you want, what you want. Anything is taken from you. Or this freedom. So you understand you don't have material things with you. And something that you need there is to get stronger with your spirit and your face.

And that can give you something that add to your survivor. So that's what I've tried to do with the guys that were very, very young and very frightened about the their lives. And for me to cry on this situation is not an option. I always try to find other solutions to make myself, you know, in a better condition. And I try to force them to say something good in that day that happened to us. When you do that, it seems that not all, everything is dark and awful and and and the things did they say what would be a thing that you say is good you know it was once a week two once in two weeks we got a tea and if it was with cinnamon or with the sugar it was a very good thing

even then to get a tea it's a great thing in the day someone that used to humiliate you every day and threaten your life every day. It just went for two or three days from the tunnel outside. So it wasn't with us. So it was a great day for us. Each one of these things, you know, if you got showered in the same day or changing clothes or they gave you extra pillow or something like that, anything like that could be a very, very good day for us.

And that was, and I'm telling you after two or three weeks of this, you know, practicing and do it every day. And as I said in the beginning, I forced them to say that each one of them start to find four or five things a day. Four or five things a day to be grateful for in that situation. Yes. And taking care of them, it really strikes from reading. that that's what got you through it. In other words, that was your good thing. Is that reading correctly what was happening there?

It was a very good thing for me. It was, you know, everybody's think that how much I helped them. All these things helped me to find meaning in this captivity. And I understood that everything we're doing together as a one unit, it's very important for us. As you said, as you mentioned, they tried to bribe us with food in the middle of the night that will say some sentences

from the Quran. And we refused, even we've been very, very, very hungry. We refused to get food just for ourselves, not if it wasn't for everybody else. We try to show them that we are one unit that we are we did not you cannot divide us

it was very important and some of them react to this and said wow great it's amazing that you are together it's amazing you refuse to take food when I am not giving to the other one and that's

this is the things that you know hold our spirit you have been since your release writing this book touring Jewish communities all over the world speaking out as much as you can part of it and you're explicit about this is to get Alon oil out and I want you to tell us about Alon who is still in and hopefully you know with God's help in a week or two or three we'll meet him but tell us

about Alon and tell us about your larger message that you're carrying with you and all this you know, it's since February. First of all about alone is his great kid. I met him taking after an hour and understood that how much we have in common. Kid with that, you know, that raised with the great values.

Everybody sees, you know, aware now about his mother and father and see what amazing family they are. very innocent, very naive guy. And you cannot not love him, you know. It's just, it's very obvious that he's very lovable guy. And we become very, really good friends there. And we've been for each other all these 14 months in the tunnels.

And to leave him was one of my... hardest moments in captivity. And I wish I can met him really, really soon. I'm really waiting for him. And after we'll be with his family, I'm sure we'll find the time to be together. I'm sure he survived. He has all the tools to survive.

this hell we've seen, I think, was a month ago, his video, and I'm really happy that he's still alive, and I'm sure we'll see him again. He's all of 24 years old. He's this extraordinary pianist, a musician. Very talented pianist. Amazing. And as you said, he has a wound in one eye that we don't know its condition. he's one of the living hostages that hopefully this deal will get out. Tell us about connecting to him in those tunnels because the relationship you describe,

it really is almost a fatherly one. It's actually a very deep one. Yeah, because, you know, when you need to survive, you need to do anything and, you know, to take care of yourself and not being naive. it's really, really good that you want, that everybody will, you know, will like you and all these things, but you have to understand that not each one from the hostages, we have the same values of yours.

And it can be, you know, differently. And if you're not noticed, somebody can eat more than you and somebody can take your clothes or your mattress or your pillow, So I start to teach him and explain to him that he need to take care of himself. It's great if he wants that everybody else will be okay as well. But first of all, he needs to take care of himself. And he had a great process about that.

Yeah, so I was like his father, you know, I'm double his age. I have more experience than him. I'm not afraid to say what I have to say, even if it's not really nice to other people. And he starts to learn that it's okay to say what he want and what you feel. You met a gentle soul when he went in. Very, very gentle sword, but then he can become very tough. And these nightmares that was often in the beginning at night,

was waking up, shouting and all this, become less at the end. And that was very good as well. As I said, I'm waiting for him, to hold him, to hug him, and to do all the things we promise to each other. Ellie, what's your message to all the Jewish communities you visited? What's your message to? Anybody you want to send a message to? Well, I think a very important message that it doesn't really matter all the disagreements we have to each other.

We don't have to think the same and not the Israelis. And we have, you know, each one of us coming from other background and thinking differently and it's fine. But we have more in common as Israelis, as Jewish. And it's the only way is to be united Israelis. Israelis and the Jewish people around the world. And this is the only way we can defeat our enemies. We can live in our country. We're speaking on the two-year anniversary.

How are you marking this day? Well, I don't need any Memorial Day, a special Memorial Day, to remember my brother, Yossi, my wife, Leanne, my daughter, Gnoiaz. I don't need they live with me every moment with my life. in the car, before I'm going to sleep, when I wake up, when I eat, the places I go remind me them. But there will be all my life there. But there will be alongside of my life and not instead of my life.

And I'm quite sure I'm going to rebuild my life. Elisha Rabi, thank you so much. Thank you.