He Spent 491 Days as a Hamas Hostage. This Is How He Survived.

Honestly with Bari Weiss

The Free Press

News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 7.8K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2025

⏱️ 100 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Two years ago today, five terrorists broke into Eli Sharabi’s safe room on Kibbutz Be’eri. He had been sheltered there for hours with his wife, Lianne, and teenage daughters, Noiya and Yahel, reading horrific texts flooding in from neighbors and hoping somehow his family would be spared. They were not. The terrorists shot and killed their dog, then dragged Eli away, leaving his family behind. As they pulled him out the door, he looked back and shouted: “I’ll come back!” After 491 days in Hamas captivity, Eli did come back. He survived—with most of his time buried deep underground, shackled, starved, subjected to constant humiliation, and psychological and physical torture—all because he believed he would one day be reunited with his wife and daughters. That belief kept him alive. But when he was released on February 8 under a ceasefire agreement, he soon learned the devastating truth: Lianne, Noiya, and Yahel were dead. Hamas murdered them on October 7, 2023. His brother Yossi, also kidnapped, had been killed in captivity as well. Eli’s memoir, Hostage, out today, is the first published account by a released Israeli hostage. He writes in unflinching detail about being held in the tunnels, about his Hamas captors, and about his singular focus on survival. We read the book, through tears, last week on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Yom Kippur is a day of atonement and forgiveness, but it’s really a day of reckoning with life and death. The story Jews around the world read that morning is of Moses’s final speech to the Israelites before his death, delivered as they stand on the edge of the Promised Land—after slavery in Egypt, after 40 years of wandering in the desert and the loss of an entire generation. Moses tells them: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, so that you and your descendants may live.” If anyone has earned a right to despair, to give up on life, it’s Eli Sharabi. But he doesn’t. What’s remarkable about Eli is that he chose—and continues to choose—survival at every turn. He chooses life in the face of death. Again and again and again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Hi, honestly, listeners. I have an amazing announcement. We're trying something different this week at the free press. We're calling it free press, free week. For one week only, everything we publish, every story, column, investigative report, live stream, podcast, you name it. It's going to be free to all from October 6 to October 12th. It's free access to our
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1:32.3	From the free press, this is honestly and I'm Barry Weiss.
1:39.3	Two years ago today, five terrorists broke into Elie Shurabi's safe room on Kibbutzbury.
1:44.3	He had been sheltered there for hours with his wife, Leanne, and their teenage daughters,
1:45.3	Noia and Yehel.
1:51.4	They'd been reading horrific texts flooding in from neighbors and hoping somehow that their family would be spared.
1:52.9	They were not.
1:59.6	The terrorists shot and killed their dog and then dragged Elie away, leaving his wife and two daughters behind.
2:01.7	As they pulled him out the door,
2:09.1	he looked back at his family and shouted, I'll come back. After 491 days in Hamas captivity, Elie Shirabi did come back. He survived most of that time buried deep underground, shackled, starved, deprived of light, subjected to constant humiliation, and psychological and physical torture.
2:25.8	At one point, most of his ribs were broken because of a beating.
	...

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