Freed hostage Eli Sharabi was reportedly unaware his wife, daughters were killed on Oct. 7
Wife Lianne, teenage daughters Noiya and Yahel were murdered in safe room at Kibbutz Be’eri home; brother Yossi was killed in Gaza captivity, which Hamas announced as Eli was released
Released hostage Eli Sharabi’s first request when he was back in Israel was to see his family, because he was unaware that his wife and two daughters were murdered in the Hamas onslaught on October 7, 2023, Hebrew media reported.
Sharabi’s wife Lianne and their daughters, Noiya, 16, and Yahel, 13, were killed in their home’s safe room at Kibbutz Be’eri, and he and his elder brother Yossi were taken captive.
Yossi has since been confirmed dead, and Hamas is holding his body.
According to Channel 12 news, Sharabi was notified of his wife and daughters’ deaths after his return from the Gaza Strip. He was initially reunited with his mother Hannah and sister Osnat, and subsequently with other members of his family, including his brother Sharon. His family was reportedly given advice on how to break the terrible news.
He was already aware that Yossi had been killed.
Hamas announced the death, to great applause, as masked terrorists paraded Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami and Or Levy in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah before handing the emaciated hostages to the Red Cross on Saturday morning.
At the handover ceremony, Sharabi had been asked in Hebrew how he was feeling by the masked Hamas gunman running the show, and said into the microphone, “I feel very, very happy today to return to my family and friends, to my wife and my daughters.”
He reportedly told IDF soldiers on the journey out of Gaza that he anticipated seeing his wife and children.
Like Sharabi, Levy also returned to tragedy. His wife Eynav Elkayam Levy was murdered in the Hamas attack on the Nova music festival, where Or Levy was abducted.
This was only definitively confirmed to Levy on his return from captivity on Saturday.
He spoke with their 3-year-old son Almog in a video call after being released. “Dad, it took you a long time to come back,” Almog told his father.
Sharabi and Ben Ami are longtime friends from Kibbutz Be’eri, which was ravaged in the Hamas onslaught. The community said in a statement that Sharabi “is coming back from one impossible reality in captivity, to a most terrible reality in Israel.”
“We embrace him, and we’ll continue offering the best support possible,” the kibbutz said.
Sharabi, Ben Ami and Levy returned Saturday in the fifth release of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal’s first phase. They were held captive for 491 days.
All three were transferred to hospitals in Israel: Sharabi and Levy to Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer Hospital, Ramat Gan, and Ben Ami to Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital.
Hamas kidnapped 251 people on October 7, 2023, when thousands of terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people, sparking the war in Gaza.
Seventy-three of the hostages remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas has so far released 21 hostages — civilians, soldiers, and five Thai nationals — during a ceasefire that began in January. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that.
Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recovered from Gaza in January.
