Eli Sharabi’s ‘Hostage’ recounts his will for survival

By Steve Kramer in Kfar Saba, Israel

Jews around the world were shocked by the October 7, 2023 sneak attack on Israel by Hamas, the treacherous terrorists who rule Gaza. Their goal was to wipe out the Jews residing in the communities adjacent to and nearby the border. Hamas hoped to invade further north into Israel well beyond the border area, but couldn’t. [Hamas attacked prematurely, spoiling the plan for a combined Arab onslaught on Israel which might have succeeded.]

251 Israelis (alive and dead), children, men, and women, were captured and rushed into Gaza, joining four other Israelis held by Hamas for years, two alive and two who were dead.

According to Israeli authorities, 1,200 Israelis, other Jews, and Thai farm workers  were slaughtered on October 7, the worst incident of mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. A devastating war against Hamas ensued, resulting in the decapitation of nearly all its leaders and the deaths of thousands of Hamas terrorists as well as the Gazan civilians they used as human shields. 922 IDF soldiers and 70 Israeli police officers were also killed during the war.

I recently read Hostage, written by Eli Sharabi, who survived 491 days as a hostage in Hamas tunnels. This was the first published account by a released Israeli hostage and it appeared while the war raged on. A ceasefire was signed months later and Israel now controls 53% of Gaza.

Sharabi, a member of Kibbutz Be’eri, was captured on October 7 and spirited away without knowing whether his wife and two daughters escaped, were killed, or were also taken as hostages. He would spend his time in captivity hoping that somehow, they had managed to evade the bloodthirsty Hamas terrorists (joined by many Gazan “civilians”) who rampaged through Be’eri.

Sharabi, in his early 50s, was imprisoned with three younger Israelis in their 20s. In some sense he was like a father to them, always encouraging them to cling to a will to SURVIVE. Their captivity was spent almost totally in tunnels which Hamas built throughout Gaza, connecting with almost every dwelling in the cities and towns. How this gargantuan project to construct the tunnels was carried out without Israel’s vaunted intelligence agencies knowledge is a subject beyond the scope of this article. In fact, it’s almost certain that there was knowledge of both the tunnels and the planned invasion, but it wasn’t taken seriously enough to change the mindset of the intelligence and military leaders. The belief was that Gaza wouldn’t attack Israel but wanted to have peace and a better life for the Gazans. (1)

Sharabi had a purpose; his lode star was to SURVIVE. He promoted this goal to his three companions at the worst of times, for their and his own benefit. The four Israelis were fed only enough to prevent starvation, wore the same ragged clothes for months, had no shoes, were kept dirty beyond description, and were subject to constant propaganda in an attempt to convert them to Islam.

Yet they managed not to fully despair. Sharabi’s maturity was a great benefit to himself and to his younger compatriots. They didn’t succumb to despair which surely would have greatly reduced their chances to survive. Sharabi’s insistence that they would survive proved psychiatrist Victor Frankl’s theory: that those inmates who had some meaning or goal in their lives were more likely to survive. (2)

Once Hamas recognized that their goal of conquering Israel was not to be and that the war against Israel was not succeeding, hostages began to be released. After 471 days the four half-starved, filthy Israelis were given clean clothes and were coached on how they were to act in the ‘ceremony’ of their release. No deviation from the Hamas agenda would be allowed.

The hostages knew that Israelis would recognize the forced charade they would be forced to perform, so they followed the script assigned to them. Since I didn’t recall the fate of the families of the four hostages, the conclusion of the book was both shocking and hopeful. I recommend Hostage to all my readers. It is both a revelation and an inspiration.
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NOTES
(1) It was assumed that the Gazans wanted to build a good life for their families. This assumption is absolutely incorrect and has been proven many times by their rejection of peace with Israel. But Western leaders, including American ones, still cling to this fantasy. Why? They are sure that other people think like we Westerners do.

(2) “Viktor Frankl was a young and successful Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist when Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were welcomed into Austria in 1938. Separated from his wife and stripped of his identity and humanity, Frankl spent three years in four different concentration camps, including Auschwitz, the notorious death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. When the camps were liberated at the end of World War II, Frankl returned to Vienna, where he learned that his entire family, including his beloved Tilly, had been murdered by the Nazis.

After the war Frankl wrote about his strategy to survive in Man’s Search for Meaning. ”Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
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Steve Kramer is an American-Israeli freelance writer residing in Kfar Saba, Israel.