Despairing of rescue, hostage prayed girlfriend would move on

Sasha Troufanov, released on Saturday, did not believe he’d survive Hamas captivity.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Sapir Cohen, the partner of Sasha Troufanov who was freed on Saturday, told a press gathering Sunday night at Sheba Hospital that he had he had prayed she’d find someone else as he never expected to survive.

“Sasha told me that he prayed for me, that I would find a man I love, that I would not wait for him,” she relayed, voice shaking. “He did not want me to wait for a man who would never come home. He did not believe that he would come out alive.”

Troufanov spent his entire captivity alone, almost all of it in tunnels under Khan Yunis, where he was sometimes left chained in the dark. He was starved, and abused both physically and mentally.

Cohen, whom Hamas terrorists had abducted along with Troufanov and his mother and grandmother from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the October 7, 2023 invasion, said that since that day she has managed to “fulfill dreams I never thought I’d have – to return alive from captivity in Gaza and to hug Sasha again.”

The three women were released in the first hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, some seven weeks into the war, when 82 female and underage Israelis were freed over the course of a week in exchange for a temporary ceasefire, 246 Palestinian prisoners, and humanitarian aid that has flowed into the Strip ever since.

Cohen thanked all the troops who fought in Gaza, and the families of the fallen, saying that “to call you soldiers is to minimize what you do, a thousand-fold. You are role models who show what unity is, what solidarity is. Thank you for showing us that this is possible.”

She also expressed special gratitude to everyone who gave strength and hope to the hostages’ families, “each in their own way,” saying that she “thanked God every day for the privilege I was given to meet so many good people.”

Troufanov’s mother, Yelena, whose husband was murdered by Hamas terrorists on October 7, said, “I feel like I have received my life, my soul, my heart back” with her son’s return, calling it a “miracle” that although he’d been shot in both legs when he was abducted, he could stand and walk.

Avital Dekel-Chen, wife of Sagui who was freed along with Troufanov, told the gathered journalists that her husband “did not see daylight since October 7,” and didn’t know what had happened to his family until the day before he was released. He managed to hold on and not give up hope, she said, “thanks to love.”

But it was extremely hard to survive for nearly 17 months, she said, relaying that he had told her, “It’s nice that they write 498 days, but basically it’s more correct to say that we’ve been there for over 43 million seconds of hell.”

“They don’t count days or hours, they count seconds,” she emphasized.

All the family members who spoke said it was of the utmost importance for all the rest of the hostages to be freed, no matter the cost.

Hamas is still holding 73 captives, 35 of whom are known to be dead.

Three of them have been held in Gaza for a decade or more: Two mentally ill young men, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who wandered into the Strip in 2014 and 2015 respectively, and Hadar Goldin, a soldier killed in 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, whose body was stolen.

The two who are alive are on the list to be freed in the last part of Phase 1 of the current hostage deal.

families of hostageshamas hostagesIsrael-Hamas war