Like most pogroms that took place in Christian kingdoms during the Middle Ages or those carried out with unprecedented violence in Europe in the 1930s and 40s, the massive killing of Jews on October 7, 2023 caught Israeli citizens and the Israeli Government off guard.
That morning, around 6:30 a.m., Eli Sharabi (Tel Aviv, 1972), who lived in the Be'eri kibbutz, less than five kilometers from the Gaza border, was getting ready with his wife and two daughters to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. When he heard gunshots and the arrival of the terrorists, he barely had time to react, like the rest of his neighbors, and locked himself with his family in the safe room that all houses in Israel have, a country that has been under threat since its independence in 1948.
"Dozens of terrorists had entered the kibbutz and were going from house to house forcing the shelters, but the Israeli Army was nowhere to be seen," he explains to Crónica during his recent visit to Madrid. They had been in the shelter for about four hours when the assailants entered their house. "The five terrorists who burst into the shelter were not alone. There were another five, plus a commander barking orders. They were professional operatives, careful, they knew exactly what they were doing. They forcibly took me to the front door, with my head down. When I managed to lift it for a moment and take a look, I saw my beautiful kibbutz reduced to a scene of carnage. Our neighbors' houses were on fire." Left behind were his wife, Lianne, and his two daughters, Noiya, 16, and Yahel, 13.
After hitting him on the head and ribs, they put him in a vehicle. "The fence at the northeast end of the kibbutz was completely open. Standing there was a man who looked like a traffic director, directing movements. Unlike the others, he wasn't wearing a face covering. He had a role. He wasn't just a terrorist: he was an administrator. Within that murderous madness, there was order, a plan."
Sharabi is not wrong. There are already numerous indications to think that the attack was instigated by the Islamist regime of Iran, coordinated by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, and executed by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. A strategy meticulously prepared for months to provoke the greatest annihilation of Jews since the Holocaust: 1,163 killed, 4,834 injured, and 251 kidnapped.
Eli Sharabi was one of these last ones. He couldn't imagine it would take 491 days before regaining his freedom, but from the treatment he received from his captors, he knew from day one that they didn't want to kill him, that they would keep him alive to exchange him in a truce of the war that had just begun. Because even though on that October 7th the Israeli Army was slow to react, the response driven by the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu ended up becoming one of the most violent conflicts remembered in the region.
Eli Sharabi, last Wednesday, June 3, in Madrid, before the presentation of his book 'Hostage,' where he recounts his personal experience.Sergio González Valero
As soon as he got out of the car, in Gaza, a crowd pounced on him. "They started hitting my head, shouting, cursing, trying to tear me limb from limb. My heart was pounding, my mouth was dry, I could barely breathe." It was his first experience as a victim of visceral antisemitic hatred. And he lived it as a constant threat during the long days of his captivity. "They hated us just for being Jewish pigs and treated us with contempt. In all that time, I didn't meet anyone in Gaza who was kind or compassionate towards us. That's why when the media talk about innocent civilians, I don't know what they mean."
Sharabi spent more than 50 days in private homes, from whose rooftops shells were launched and where civilian families lived, "who collaborated with the terrorists." They reached them through the extensive tunnel network that existed throughout the Strip. "Every time we entered or exited the tunnels, it was through a residence, a hospital, a mosque, or a school."
In those early days, Sharabi had hope and fear. The hope was to see his wife and daughters alive again. To achieve this, he set his only goal to survive, never put himself at risk, nor give in to despair. The fear, which caused him nightmares, was ending up inside the tunnels, which he had seen so many times on television and whose intense darkness paralyzed him with terror.
And there they led him right away, with several more hostages who had been kidnapped at the Nova Festival, held in the Negev desert, a few kilometers from Gaza, where the terrorists had killed hundreds of young people, raped numerous women, and kidnapped dozens of people. With his new fellow captives, he spent most of the time before his liberation. Not a single day without shackles, always chained by the feet so they couldn't escape if the Army tried to rescue them. And always, with a gnawing hunger.
At first, they enjoyed two meals a day and some tea. Then, only one, accompanied by water, and not always at the same time. "Looking at each other, we saw extreme thinness, emaciated faces, flesh being consumed. I felt my body weakening, felt dizzy, saw my belly sinking inwards. The food consisted of a dry pita and a half per person, or a tray of tasteless pasta or rice. In addition to the bread rations, sometimes they also gave us a can of cheese or beans. We preferred the pita, so we could save a piece for the night, at least to have something in our stomachs before sleeping and help alleviate the hunger."