46 pages • 1-hour read
Hostage
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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of kidnapping, captivity, physical deprivation, psychological abuse, violence, death, antisemitic hatred, and war.
Chapter 1 Summary
The memoir opens on the morning of October 7, 2023, as Eli Sharabi; his wife, Lianne; their daughters, Noiya and Yahel; and their dog shelter in their home’s safe room in Kibbutz Be’eri during what initially appears to be a familiar rocket alert. Accustomed to missile fire from nearby Gaza, the family follows routine procedures, calming the children and waiting out the sirens. The situation escalates when news broadcasts show armed gunmen operating openly in nearby towns, confirming that the attack is unprecedented in scale. WhatsApp messages from local emergency groups and neighbors relay increasingly dire information: Terrorists have infiltrated the kibbutz, homes are being breached, and there are casualties.
Sharabi secures the house as best he can, aware that the safe room is not designed to protect against intruders. Terrorists attempt to enter the house but initially move on. As fires spread through neighboring homes, the family decides that if attackers return, they will not resist in hopes of protecting the children. Several hours later, terrorists break in through an unshuttered window and storm the house. They drag the family from the safe room into the living area, where birthday decorations still hang from recent celebrations.
Sharabi immediately understands that he is being targeted for abduction. Lianne attempts to protect herself and the girls by emphasizing their British citizenship. Although Sharabi briefly believes this may spare them, he is forcibly separated from his family and dragged outside. As he is beaten and marched through the kibbutz, he witnesses widespread destruction and armed militants moving freely. Crossing the perimeter fence, he realizes he is being kidnapped into Gaza.
At an assembly point, Sharabi is thrown into a stolen vehicle and concealed under a blanket. He overhears his captors speaking Arabic, expressing excitement and triumph over the attack. Another hostage is added to the car. As they pass through a gate and continue west, Sharabi recognizes the finality of the moment: He has been taken into Gaza, and his captivity has begun.
Chapter 2 Summary
Sharabi arrives in Gaza with another captive, Khun, a Thai worker. When their vehicle stops, a crowd surges toward them, grabbing and striking Sharabi as people fight over him; he believes he is about to be lynched. Hamas gunmen force the mob back and rush both hostages into a building that Sharabi identifies as a mosque by glimpsing prayer rugs through his blindfold. Inside, the captors remove their blindfolds, order them to strip, and interrogate Sharabi in Arabic. His fluency heightens their suspicion: They insist he is a soldier and doubt his age. When Khun cannot answer questions, the captors hit him, and Sharabi steps in to translate and reassure him, recognizing that he must help keep Khun calm and safe.
Sharabi and Khun are blindfolded again and bound with zip ties. Their captors then move them through multiple locations—different cars, different teams, different stops—apparently to evade Israeli tracking. During one transfer, Sharabi fears being taken into tunnels and silently prays not to be buried underground. The captors bring them into a family home, briefly give them water, then bind them again with tight ropes that burn into Sharabi’s skin and force his arms behind his back. As adrenaline fades, pain dominates his awareness for days. An older man in the house refuses to loosen the restraints and repeatedly orders him to sleep. Sharabi notices the room is a children’s bedroom and sees burlap labeled “UNRWA” (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) covering the windows.
As Israeli air strikes begin, Sharabi listens to drones and nearby rocket launches and worries for people on both sides of the border. Basic bodily needs become humiliating as guards physically expose him, still shackled, to use the bathroom. After three days, two armed men—Sa’id and Sa’ad, later nicknamed “the Mask” and “the Cleaner”—treat his rope wounds, shackle his legs, and allow him to remain unblindfolded. Sharabi studies their habits and beliefs while carefully managing what he reveals about his own background. Over days, he learns the family members’ names and dynamics, continues supporting Khun through panic and despair, and endures further forced stripping and shaving.
On day five, a foreign cameraman arrives to film a proof-of-life video. Sharabi recites dictated lines to the Israeli government while imagining his family watching, trying to communicate that he is alive. He assesses the house’s layout, attempts futile signals to drones, and concludes escape is unrealistic. As captivity continues, guarded conversations, routines, and card games create a tense proximity; Sharabi insists he does not identify with his captors, yet uses understanding and communicating with them as a survival tool while holding to one fixed goal: returning home.
Chapter 3 Summary
On October 31, 2023, Sharabi and Khun are jolted awake by a massive explosion that tears fabric from the windows and blows the door apart. Fearing the house will collapse, they scramble out despite their leg shackles. Screams echo nearby as dust fills the air. Sa’id unlocks their chains, and they descend into the basement, sheltering under the staircase on sand-covered ground. Another blast hits a neighboring building, prompting the captors to decide the basement is now their permanent location. Mattresses are dragged under the stairs, and Sharabi realizes they will live there going forward.
As movement becomes restricted, Sharabi overhears a television upstairs broadcasting Hebrew voices—an Israeli mother and child pleading for release. The moment overwhelms him; he cries for the first time since his abduction and realizes women and children were also taken hostage. The possibility that his wife and daughters might be hostages devastates him. When he asks his captors, they insist the abduction of women and children was a “mistake” and reassure him that his family is safe. He clings to their assurances.
Life in the basement continues amid heat, air strikes, and the occasional relief of fresh air when a door to the yard is opened. Rain briefly brings sensory relief and memories of home. Talk of a ceasefire—hudna—circulates, raising and dashing hopes repeatedly. When the ceasefire begins, silence replaces constant bombardment. Sharabi receives updates about hostages being released, but it is only for women and children. On day 51, he is told he will be moved to a safer place.
Before leaving, Sharabi says goodbye to Khun, believing Khun is about to be released, and asks him to report Sharabi’s survival. After a tense nighttime transfer, Sharabi is returned to the basement, where a disguised new hostage is revealed: Almog Sarusi, an Israeli abducted from the Nova Festival. Almog recounts his shooting, injury, and neglect in captivity. The two bond through shared language and experience.
Soon after, Sharabi and Almog are taken to a mosque, where a trapdoor opens onto a tunnel shaft. Faced with the ultimatum to descend or be shot, Sharabi recognizes the terrible clarity of the moment. He chooses to go down. Darkness opens beneath them as the shaft is sealed above.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
Sharabi’s opening chapters establish how Hostage will tell its story and why readers should trust it. He begins by anchoring the narrative in direct experience: What he sees, hears, and physically endures as events unfold. The sound of drones overhead, the pain of restraints against skin, and the press of bodies during his abduction ground the memoir in sensory detail. In these chapters, physical sensation carries particular weight, shaping the narrative before reflection or explanation has time to intervene.
From the start, Sharabi is careful about what he claims to know. He consistently separates observation from inference, reminding readers that captivity unfolds in conditions of partial information and deliberate confusion. This uncertainty becomes part of what he is documenting. Rumors circulate, messages are staged, and knowledge arrives in fragments. When Sharabi states, “I focus and concentrate on one mission: surviving to return home” (8), he signals how these fragments will be handled. Survival becomes the organizing principle that governs attention, memory, and emotional restraint, aligning the memoir with Testimony as Ethical Obligation, where precision matters more than interpretation.
The book establishes how control is embedded in the routine practices of captivity. In the early chapters, Sharabi documents how his captors exercise power through bodily regulation—blindfolding, binding, forced grooming—as well as through restricting prisoners’ movement between rooms, vehicles, and holding sites. Speech is also tightly managed, especially during proof-of-life recordings where lines are dictated and performance is enforced. Objects recur with quiet menace: zip ties, ropes, fabric over windows, a camera lens. Each marks a boundary between those who command visibility and those who are rendered visible. Over time, these repeated details reveal The Politics of Control in Captivity as a system that relies on predictability, humiliation, and dependence as much as violence.
Sharabi’s sense of self transforms in these conditions. His declaration, “There is no more regular Eli. From now on, I am Eli the survivor” (8), marks a forced recalibration of identity. His attention narrows to minute details, each of which may have life-or-death consequences. He must act emotionally neutral even in his most desperate moments. He assesses every action for risk. He also develops specific fears. His repeated plea—“Just not a tunnel, please, God, not a tunnel” (12)—captures how certain threats create their own particular brand of terror.
The relationships he develops early in his captivity show how solidarity forms for practical reasons. With Khun, his support takes the form of translation, reassurance, and calming Kuhn’s panic when a misunderstanding could provoke violence. At first, these exchanges are functional; maintaining order ensures everyone stays alive. Sharabi anticipates how such interactions might be misunderstood by readers and addresses that directly: “This isn’t Stockholm Syndrome. I don’t identify with [the captors]. I don’t pity them. I’m not confused about who they are or what they really want” (22). The bluntness of this clarification draws a firm boundary. Cooperation, composure, and care are survival strategies, not moral alignment. In this framing, caretaking becomes an expression of agency consistent with Caretaking as Resistance, rather than a compromise of ethical clarity.
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