In a raw and unflinch­ing mem­oir, Eli Shara­bi, a sur­vivor of 491 days in Hamas cap­tiv­i­ty, recounts the har­row­ing ordeal of his abduc­tion from Kib­butz Be’eri on Octo­ber 7th, 2023, the loss of his wife and daugh­ters, and his unyield­ing resolve to survive.

“I refuse to let myself drown in pain. I am sur­viv­ing. I am a hostage. In the heart of Gaza. A stranger in a strange land. In the home of a Hamas-sup­port­ing fam­i­ly. And I’m get­ting out of here. I have to. I’m get­ting out of here. I’m com­ing home.” — Eli Sharabi 

On Octo­ber 7, 2023, Hamas ter­ror­ists stormed Kib­butz Be’eri, shat­ter­ing the peace­ful life Eli Shara­bi had built with his British wife, Lianne, and their teenage daugh­ters, Noiya and Yahel. Dragged bare­foot out his front door while his fam­i­ly watched in hor­ror, Shara­bi was plunged deep into the suf­fo­cat­ing dark­ness of Gaza’s tun­nels. As war raged above him, he endured a gru­el­ing 491 days in cap­tiv­i­ty, all the while hold­ing onto the hope that he would one day be reunit­ed with his loved ones.

Eli Sharabi’s sto­ry is one of hunger and heartache, of phys­i­cal pain, long­ing, lone­li­ness and a help­less­ness that threat­ens to destroy the soul. But it is also a sto­ry of strength, of resilience, and of the human spirit’s refusal to sur­ren­der. It is about the cama­raderie forged in cap­tiv­i­ty, the qui­et pow­er of faith, and one man’s unre­lent­ing deci­sion to choose life, time and time again.

In the first mem­oir by a released Israeli hostage, and the fastest-sell­ing book in Israel’s his­to­ry, Shara­bi offers a sear­ing first­hand account of sur­vival under unimag­in­able con­di­tions — star­va­tion, iso­la­tion, phys­i­cal beat­ings, and psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse at the hands of his captors.

Com­pared to Elie Wiesel’s Night and Lau­ra Hillenbrand’s Unbro­ken, Hostage is a pro­found wit­ness to his­to­ry, so it shall be nei­ther for­got­ten nor erased.