HERZLIYA, Israel – For Eli Sharabi, October 7th, 2023, became a fateful day that would lead to 491 days in Hamas captivity. In his new book, Hostage, Sharabi tells how he survived and now chooses to be free from anger and bitterness.

Sharabi moved to Kibbutz Be'eri in the Gaza perimeter as a teenager and would later meet his wife, Lianne, there.

He told CBN News, "Kibbutz Be'eri is, you know, it's a beautiful place. Among fields and a beautiful community. Very strong community. Very warm community. So we found our life there."

Founded in 1946, before the state of modern Israel was born, Be'eri was one of the hardest-hit Gaza border communities on October 7th.

"So that was our dream when we raised, you know, family, and they grew up there, and they were very, very happy – until our heaven became hell on October 7th."

Alarms began around 6:30 that morning, and before long, they understood something unusual was happening.

Sharabi recalled, "And after half an hour in a safe room with two girls and our dog, we got the message from the emergency team of the kibbutz that says that we need to stay in the safe room because (of) the suspicion of Hamas terrorists, (who had) infiltrated Be’eri."

For more than four hours, they sat in their safe room, waiting for the Israel Defense Forces to rescue them. They received messages from children on the kibbutz saying their mother or father had been killed. They knew the terrorists would reach them, too. So Eli and Lianne made a decision.

"We are going to do anything to protect Noya and Yahel," Eli explained. "And the best way is not to fight against them. We will do anything they say. Probably they will kidnap me, and Lianne, Noya and Yahel will be protected by their British passports."

At 10:45, ten terrorists broke into their home. As the gunmen fired, Eli and Lianne covered the girls with their bodies. Shortly after, they kidnapped Eli and took him into Gaza.

"So I just shout to the girls, 'I'll be back.' Just to calm them down." He added, "That's the last moment I've seen them. If I only knew, I would say loads of things differently, and yeah – maybe act differently – I don't know."

More than 130 died in the Kibbutz Be'eri attack, including Eli's wife, Lianne, and their teenage daughters, Noya and Yahel. For the first 52 days of captivity, Hamas kept Sharabi in a home with a fellow hostage, a Thai worker from the kibbutz. Then came a ceasefire.

"And in the first ceasefire, they thought it's a good opportunity to take me through the tunnels without someone to, you know, try to kill them or something like that, because it's more of a ceasefire," Sharabi said.

They took him to a mosque, and inside, opened a trap door. 

Sharabi recounted, "I've seen a ladder, and they asked me to climb down. I refused in the beginning. Tried to convince them, I don't want to do that. It looked like the perfect grave for me – you know, no air, darkness all around you, but they point the gun towards me, to my head. And then I remember that promise I made to my girls that I'll come back. So, I chose life again."

After descending more than 150 feet underground, he met other hostages and spent nearly 15 months living in tunnels.

"And all these times, and, you know, it's loads of humiliations, on a daily basis – loads of psychological terror against us  – from time to time, violence. You're chained most of the time. The hygienic condition is horrific. Every six weeks you have a bath. Bath, shower with a half bucket of cold water. Almost no soap. No toothpaste. No running water," Sharabi explained.

He studied Arabic, so in captivity, he could translate for the other hostages. 

We asked him about a passage in his book. "You made some important decisions when you were down there, about survival. You said in your book that you were a little bit older than the three (hostages) you were with, and you became like a father figure and encourager for them."

He replied, "I'm really, really, proud about something that, you know. Faith is not something that comes easily. You need to work on something like that. I need to work every day about your faith because it's very, you know – in all this darkness – to find some light. It's not easy, but it's very important. It's there. Just need to look for the light. So I tried to force them every night before going to sleep to find something, you know, one thing that's good (that) happened to them in the same day. And I knew it's like a muscle that you need to train."

Though the others were skeptical, it worked.

"It's like you create your reality in, you know, in a place that it's all dark and lots of things, you know, bad things happen to you. It can be like, can be sugar in your tea. Once a week or two weeks, you get tea.The guy that gave you the food today is not someone that is cruel to you or humiliate you. So it's a good thing. Or someone that's usually humiliates you left the tunnel for 2 or 3 days. It's a very good day you have. You just need to find these things, and it's happening all (around) you," Sharabi declared.

Though not religious, Sharabi knew some Jewish prayers by heart, including the "Shema" from Deuteronomy: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One."

"The minute, the second, they pushed me into the back of the car when they kidnapped me, I started to say Shema Israel. I don't know why," he remembered. "I didn't stop to say that for 491 days since. After that, I met (fellow hostage Elliah Cohen (who) knew the prayers of the morning. So it was very good to open your day like that."

On Friday evenings, they said the special Sabbath prayers and saved a quarter of a piece of pita bread to bless.

"And it's more than a religious (act), It remind(s) you (of) home," Sharabi observed. "It's good things, to remember, you know, and give you a lot of strength. And in captivity, you look for strength for many sources. So one of them it's faith and religious and God. And if it's makes us good. It's great."

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Sharabi says he survived multiple near-death experiences.

I asked, "I know it was a horrible, horrible situation there but did you feel God at all? Did you feel like he was with you at all?"

He answered, "I think it was like more than ten times between life and death in a second. And after you pass all these situations and you stay alive, you well, you start to believe. You just believe that someone is protect(ing) you and want(s) (you) to (be) alive Because of that, when I'm released, for me, it's a second chance, and I'm grateful for that. Well, I'm grateful for loads of things, and I'm grateful to be alive. I'm grateful to be free."

On February 8, 2025, Sharabi was released in a televised ceremony. Weighing less than 100 pounds, he was initially reunited with his mother and sister. That's when he learned that the terrorists had murdered his wife and two daughters on October 7th, and kidnapped and killed his brother, Yossi, and held his body in captivity.

He noted, "Still, people (are) there after more than 700 days. Yeah. One of them is my brother. And I'm lucky to have (had) Lianne for 28 years. I lucky to have my daughters for 16 and 13 years. I was very lucky to live in the same kibbutz with my brother and have a life, a great life with him. And I'm so lucky that I had my family that fought for me for 500 days."

He believes it wouldn't be right to let grief overtake him after all the efforts made to free him.

"I love life, he said simply. "And for me, I got a second chance. Despite the, very, very difficult, messages I got (on) the day of my release about the deaths (of) Yossi, about Lianne, Noya and Yahel, it's a tremendous loss for me. But I needed to choose (not) to let the grief and the loss, to bury me, to rob me or, to find a way to move on."

Shortly after Sharabi's release, he wrote about his experience. His book, Hostage, is the first from a hostage about what happened. It's a best-seller in Hebrew and has now been translated into English and will soon be translated into other languages.

"It was (a) very therapeutic process for me," he admitted. "I felt this testimony, should be heard and should be written, for the history of Israel, for my history."

Despite the treatment he received, Sharabi wants people to take something positive from his book.

"There's many things to take from the book, but, I think the main thing is appreciation for basic things in your life," he said. "Because when you lose your freedom, you understand freedom. It's priceless – to wake up and to be able to choose when to go to the bathroom, to the shower. If you open the fridge and what to take from there."

He is using his voice and the experience to inform world leaders about what really happened.

"Places like to be in (the) UN and to make a speech there in (the) Security Council for 20 minutes and give them all the facts that I've seen. It was very, very meaningful for me," he shared.

Maybe most important is that he's not dealing with negative emotions.

"I'm not bitter," he insisted. "Words like sadness and anger, it's not something I'm dealing with day by day because I feel that these emotions and feelings can hold me back. And then just (to) move on, to move forward and to rebuild my life. And I think this is the best way my wife and my daughters and my brother will be proud of me."