Eli Sharabi tells UN Security Council: Hamas steals your aid while hostages starve
Released captive says Hamas guards laughed as they told him his brother was killed in captivity, describes being abandoned by international humanitarian organizations
Released hostage Eli Sharabi on Wednesday addressed the UN Security Council, describing how the Hamas terror group stole humanitarian aid and withheld it from Israeli captives and Gazan civilians, and detailing the torture he experienced at the hands of his captors.
Sharabi, who was released from captivity on February 8, told members of the security council that, “Hamas eats like kings while hostages starve,” at a special session on the issue of the hostages.
“I know you discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza very often,” Sharabi said at the UNSC, which held a meeting on the topic of aid entering Gaza on Tuesday, “but let me tell you as an eyewitness, I saw what happened to that aid: Hamas stole it.
“I saw Hamas terrorists carrying boxes with the UN and UNWRA emblems on them into the tunnels, dozens and dozens of boxes, paid for by your government,” Sharabi continued.
“They would eat many meals a day from the UN aid in front of us, and we never received any of it,” Sharabi said.
According to Sharabi, hostages received “one bath a month” with a bucket of cold water, were fed “a piece of pita, maybe a sip of tea,” at best, and endured brutal beatings and ridicule at the hands of their captors.
Read full text: Freed hostage Eli Sharabi asks UN Security Council, ‘Where was the world?’
"My name is Eli Sharabi. I am not a diplomat. I am a survivor. Bring them all home".
Stunning, heart-breaking, powerful testimony given to the United Nations Security Council today.
Adam Rose and I are proud to have represented Eli's family for 17 months in the fight to bring… pic.twitter.com/qIkBiCCVr7
— Adam Wagner KC (@AdamWagner1) March 20, 2025
He described the psychological and physical torture he endured in captivity, including being held “50 meters underground” in “chains so tight they ripped my skin.”
Sharabi told the Security Council that just before his release, Hamas terrorists showed him a picture of his older brother, Yossi, laughing as they told him that he had been killed in captivity. “It was like they brought a massive hammer down on me,” said Sharabi.
Yossi’s body is still being held by Hamas in Gaza. An IDF probe said last year he was likely killed as the result of an airstrike, but could not rule out that he was murdered.
Sharabi also described to members how he was abandoned to his fate by international humanitarian organizations.
“Where was the UN? Where was the Red Cross? Where was the world?” Sharabi asked. “Every day [Hamas] told us: The world has abandoned you, no one is coming.”
Holding up a picture of his family members’ graves, Sharabi described the moment he discovered, after returning to Israel in February, that rather than waiting for him at home, his wife Lianne and their daughters, Noiya, 16, and Yahel 13, had been murdered by Palestinian terrorists on October 7, 2023, in their home’s safe room at Kibbutz Be’eri.
He recalled the day they were murdered, saying “As they dragged me out, I called out to my girls, I will be back. I had to believe that. But that was the last time I ever saw them. I didn’t know I should have said goodbye, forever.”
“I’m here today because I survived and I prevailed,” Sharabi said, “but that is not enough…not when 59 hostages are still there.”
“I am not a diplomat. I am a survivor,” he told the UN officials, after the gruesome account.
“If you stand for humanity, prove it,” he concluded. “Bring them all home.”
He called for the UN to work tirelessly for the remaining 59 hostages in Gaza, who were being “chained, starved, beaten, and humiliated” in captivity.
“No more excuses, no more delays,” Sharabi said. “Bring them all home.”
Speaking ahead of his address to the Security Council, Sharabi said he “was treated worse than an animal” while in captivity.
“No one in Gaza helped me. The civilians saw us suffering, and they cheered our kidnappers. They were definitely involved,” Sharabi said. “Where was the Red Cross? Where was the United Nations?”
“Now I will stand before the UNSC to say this: no more excuses, no more delays, no more moral blindness,” Sharabi added, just before entering the meeting.
Despite having lost roughly 30 kg (66 pounds) during his horrific captivity, Sharabi has quickly joined the campaign for the release of the remaining hostages, giving a harrowing interview with Channel 12’s “Uvda” investigative program late last month about his time in Hamas’s Gaza tunnels.
Sharabi then met with US President Donald Trump along with other hostages, as well as with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
