Freed hostage Eliya Cohen releases memoir

The book, written in alternating voices, traces their journey from the festival grounds to the wedding canopy.

By Gila Isaacson, JFeed

Eliya Cohen was released from Hamas captivity on February 22, 2025, after enduring 505 days in Gaza.

He had been abducted from what survivors called the “death shelter” at the Nova music festival, where he had hidden with his girlfriend Ziv Abud during the October 7 massacre.

Throughout his captivity, Cohen believed Abud had been murdered in the attack. In reality, she had survived and became a prominent voice in the campaign demanding the return of hostages.

Their reunion before television cameras became an iconic image of hope and survival.

But when the cameras turned off, the couple faced a far more complex reality.

Now, just one week after their wedding, Cohen and Abud have released a joint memoir titled “Aisha – Building a Home Together from the Ruins,” chronicling their separate ordeals and the difficult path to reconstructing their relationship.

The book, written in alternating voices, traces their journey from the festival grounds to the wedding canopy.

Both authors share how they met, how their budding relationship was violently severed on the morning of the massacre, and the parallel battles they fought during those 505 days, his in Hamas tunnels beneath Gaza, hers in street protests demanding his freedom.

At the heart of their narrative is the challenge of resuming a shared life under the shadow of extreme trauma.

With striking honesty, they describe the vast gulf that opened between two people who lived completely different realities for an extended period.

They write about confronting anger, guilt, and anxiety and about recognizing that both had fundamentally changed, a realization that led them to rebuild trust, intimacy, and hope for the future.

Their story serves as a reminder that the experiences of returned hostages and their loved ones don’t end with the helicopter landing.

“I discovered that his return was only the beginning of a new journey.”

In the book, both authors reveal their personal feelings and the complicated reality they faced after Cohen’s release.

“Sometimes I think I was better at searching for Eliya than at finding him,” Abud writes.

“For 505 days my entire life was directed toward the moment he would return. I was certain that once it happened, everything would fall into place on its own. But I discovered that his return was only the beginning of a new journey.”

Cohen describes the sense of disconnection he experienced upon returning:

“I felt like I was entering a story that had already started without me. While I remained stuck on October 7, her life continued. She met new people, formed connections, and built an entire world in order to survive. I understood that I hadn’t just returned to Ziv; I had returned to the life she was forced to build without me. Now my task wasn’t to restore us to what we were but to find my place in the new world that was created while I wasn’t in it.”