‘Stark, unflinching’ memoir of former hostage Eli Sharabi set for US release

Sharabi lost more than 66 pounds during his ordeal and weighed just 97 pounds upon his release on Feb. 8, 2025.

By JNS

Former Hamas hostage Eli Sharabi’s memoir about his experiences in captivity in Gaza is scheduled for release in the United States on Oct. 7, 2025—the second anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on the Jewish state, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.

The book, titled “Hostage,” the first published memoir of a freed Hamas captive, has become a best seller in Hebrew.

The English edition will be published by Harper Influence, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

“It was important to me that the story come out as quickly as possible, so that the world will understand what life is like inside captivity,” Sharabi said in a statement cited by AP.

“Once they do, they will not be able to remain indifferent. But I also want readers to know that even in the darkest of times, you can always seek out the light and choose humanity,” the statement continued.

Sharabi, 53, who was abducted from his home in Kibbutz Be’eri on the border with Gaza, said he had no access to the news in captivity and only learned after his release that his wife and two daughters had been murdered on Oct. 7, 2023.

“I thought I was returning to my family,” he told Channel 12 News at the time. “I had no idea.”

Sharabi met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem ahead of his memoir release, the president’s spokesperson said on Thursday.

During the meeting, Sharabi presented Herzog with the book and made an emotional appeal to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump to intensify efforts to secure the release of remaining hostages, urging, “The families of the hostages need closure, they need peace, they need their loved ones home.”

Herzog praised Sharabi’s courage and the importance of his testimony, describing the memoir as “shattering, emotional, and heartbreaking.”

Echoing Sharabi’s plea, Herzog called for urgent international action to bring the hostages home, emphasizing that “nothing could be more just or urgent,” and commending Sharabi for ensuring his story will contribute to Israel’s public diplomacy for generations to come.

Sharabi lost more than 66 pounds during his ordeal and weighed just 97 pounds upon his release on Feb. 8, 2025.

Recounting some of his experiences after his release, he told Channel 12 that he was kept in iron chains during the entirety of his captivity, and was intermittently beaten or otherwise humiliated as he and the three other hostages he was with subsisted for months on end on a single plate of pasta a day.

“Some [captives] were chained part of the time. I was chained for 16 months. Heavy locks tore into my flesh,” said Sharabi.

“People should really think when they open a fridge at home, it’s everything. It’s everything to open a fridge,” he said. “That’s what you dream of every day. You don’t care about the beatings you get. They beat you, they’re breaking my ribs, and I don’t care; give me another half-pita.”

Trump at the time expressed his shock over the appearance of Sharabi and other redeemed hostages, who he said looked like “Holocaust survivors.”

Speaking in front of the United Nations Security Council in March 2025, Sharabi said that Hamas exploited aid from the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for its own enrichment.

“I saw Hamas terrorists carrying boxes with the U.N. and UNRWA emblems on them into the tunnel,” Sharabi told the global body. “Dozens and dozens of boxes, paid by your government, feeding terrorists who tortured me and murdered my family.

“They would eat many meals a day from the U.N. aid in front of us, and we never received any of it,” he testified. “When you speak of humanitarian aid, remember this. Hamas eats like kings while hostages starve.”

Harper Influence in a statement cited by AP said that Sharabi writes about his experience in captivity in “stark, unflinching prose, detailing the relationships the hostages formed with one another, including Alon Ohel, still a hostage in Gaza, with whom Sharabi formed an unbreakable father-son bond.”

Moreover, “Along the way, Sharabi reveals how his faith gave him the resilience to endure the horrific conditions and overcome mental anguish.”