"People should really think hard when opening their refrigerator at home. It's the whole world to just open a fridge. The very concept of a free man who can simply take a fruit out of it. Or a vegetable. Or an egg. Or water. Or a slice of bread." - Eli Sharabi (53 from Kibbutz Be'eri), recounting his 491 days in Hamas captivity and reflections as a newly freed man.
This quote hit me so hard.
We have been sending truckloads of humanitarian aide into Gaza since October 18th. Many reports claim that there is enough food to sustain each person in Gaza at around 3,000 calories per day.
Eli Sharabi said for 6 months he lived on one small bowl of pasta per day, or half a pita. Around 250-300 calories worth of food. If he was lucky he could beg for another scrap and perhaps get a dirty, sad-looking date.
When you look at your refrigerator, you should feel...
free,
privelaged,
blessed,
and appreciate the very fact that we have enough food to sustain us.
Sharabi described what it was like to receive a pita, saying they would break it into equal parts, keeping it until 10 p.m. and then eating it bite-by-bite over 10-15 minutes, “so you can get through the night.”
He lost over 30 kilograms (66 pounds) in captivity — some 40% of his body weight — and weighed just 44 kg (97 lbs) upon his release, said terrorists held the four hostages in iron chains and sometimes beat or humiliated them, as well as surving on minimal food intake.
“That’s what you dream of every day. You don’t care about the beatings you get, and they beat you, they’re breaking my ribs and I don’t care, give me another half-pita.”
Sharabi, who lost 40 percent of his body weight, also recounted close relationships he formed in captivity with now-released Or Levy and Eliya Cohen, with whom he was held for more than a year, and particularly with Alon Ohel, who remains in captivity.
When he was first taken to the tunnels, he spent three days alongside Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino and Almog Sarusi, who were murdered by their captors in August 2024, while the IDF operated nearby.
“Hersh told us a sentence that stayed with us, and gave us strength, and didn’t allow us to lose hope — I knew him for two days and he gave me a sentence that stayed with me — he said: ‘When there’s a why, you can always find the how’.”
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