Partners of David, Ariel Cunio look ahead to better days as they relish in loved ones’ return

By Jessica Steinberg

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15 October 2025, 10:25 pm

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Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center

Arbel Yehoud (center) stands flanked by Sharon Alony Cunio (L) and Sylvia Cunio, at Sheba Medical Center, on October 15, 2025, after the release of her partner, Ariel Cunio, from Hamas captivity days earlier. (Alon Gilboa/Hostages and Missing Families Forum)

Sharon Alony Cunio, the wife of released hostage David Cunio, says in a statement from Sheba Medical Center that she has waited two years to tell her daughters, “Emma and Yulia, daddy is home.”

This will be the third night that David can hug his young daughters before they go to sleep, and they often fall asleep together, Alony Cunio says, adding that they no longer have to ask her if he’s still alive and if he’ll come home.

She says it will be a long journey of rehabilitation, of healing and mourning the friends and neighbors they lost, the trauma of being taken hostage, the nightmare of captivity.

“I rely on my David, we will return to being a happy family,” says Alony Cunio.

She thanks US President Donald Trump, hostage envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and the negotiating team, “most of whom were in the shadows and did all they could.”

Alony Cunio thanks all the soldiers, and the nation of Israel, who went out to the streets to demand the return of the hostages.

“The victory is yours,” she says.

She adds that they won’t stop the struggle until the last hostage is home, “otherwise it will be a stain for generations to come.”

Arbel Yehoud, the partner of released hostage Ariel Cunio and a former hostage herself, calls herself “emotional and purified” in her statement from the hospital.

She laments that the hostages could have been brought home long ago, and that others could have been saved — including, she says, fellow Nir Oz residents Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, as well as Oded Lifshitz, Amiram Cooper and Yoram Metzger.

Amiram Cooper’s body has not yet been returned from Gaza.

“This unending nightmare is over only when all are buried at home,” says Yehoud, asking people to continue going to the weekly rallies at Hostages Square until all are returned.

She thanks the Trump administration and Steve Witkoff for creating a new reality and for their “huge heart.”

“You saved my life,” said Yehoud, who was released in February 2025 after being kept captive alone for a year and a half. “I’m here because of you, and so is my beloved Ariel and many others.”

Yehoud speaks about being part of the bereaved families in Israel, and her brother, Dolev Yehoud, who was killed fighting invading terrorists in Kibutz Nir Oz, leaving behind his pregnant wife and three children; and about her beloved friends, the Siman Tov family, who were murdered in their home on October 7, 2023.

“I hope for better days,” says Yehoud.