Hostage

Hostage (2025) is a first-person memoir by Israeli civilian Eli Sharabi, who was abducted during the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack and held captive in Gaza for 491 days. A resident of Kibbutz Be’eri, Sharabi writes from direct lived experience, documenting prolonged confinement, bodily deprivation, psychological coercion, and the fragile solidarities formed among hostages. First published in Hebrew in Israel—where it became the fastest-selling book in the country’s history—Hostage belongs to the tradition of testimony and survival memoir, emphasizing witness over interpretation. The book is a New York Time bestseller and addresses themes such as Testimony as an Ethical Obligation, The Politics of Control in Captivity, and Caretaking as Resistance. 

This guide refers to the 2025 Harper Influence English-language eBook. 

Content Warning: The source material and this guide include descriptions of kidnapping, captivity, physical deprivation, psychological abuse, violence, death, antisemitic hatred, and war.

Summary

Hostage opens in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, during which Eli Sharabi is violently abducted from Kibbutz Be’eri in Israel and taken into Gaza. Separated from his wife, Lianne, and daughters, Noiya and Yahel, Sharabi is thrust into a state of extreme disorientation, fear, and physical vulnerability. His early stages of captivity are marked by chaos, crowd violence, and repeated relocations as he is moved between aboveground holding sites and underground tunnels.

As his captivity continues, Sharabi is held primarily in subterranean tunnels alongside other Israeli hostages. Conditions are harsh and degrading: Food is scarce, hygiene nearly nonexistent, movement is severely restricted, and uncertainty is constant. Captors exert control through deprivation and psychological manipulation, alternately raising and crushing hopes of release. Sharabi learns to manage his expectations, warning himself and others not to trust rumors or verbal assurances until freedom is materially secured.

Within these conditions, hostages develop improvised systems of survival. They ration food, establish routines, monitor one another’s physical and emotional states, and attempt to preserve dignity amid dehumanization. Sharabi describes how relationships among captives—especially acts of caretaking and connection—become essential to endurance. He also details encounters with different captors, some brutal, others bureaucratic, all operating within a system designed to control bodies, time, and the narrative of events.

Over months, fragments of outside information filter into captivity through overheard conversations and television broadcasts. Sharabi and others learn of ongoing fighting, hostage negotiations, and shifting political developments, including changes in international leadership. These updates influence captors’ behavior and fuel cycles of hope and despair among the hostages.

As negotiations advance, Sharabi is subjected to staged recordings and rehearsals, in which captors script his words and movements for propaganda purposes. He complies strategically, prioritizing survival and release over confrontation. Eventually, Sharabi and fellow hostages are moved in preparation for release, enduring further transfers, uncertainty, and intimidation.

After 491 days in captivity, Sharabi is released in a highly publicized ceremony before being handed to the Red Cross and then the Israel Defense Forces. During transport, he experiences an emotional collapse upon being told he is safe. Upon reaching Israeli custody, Sharabi learns devastating news: His wife and daughters were murdered on October 7, and his brother Yossi was killed in captivity. Despite this, he continues to move forward, focused on reconnecting with surviving family members.

The memoir concludes with Sharabi’s return to Israel, his reunions with family, ongoing medical care, and his visit to the graves of his wife and daughters. The final pages emphasize the reality of survival alongside irreversible loss, and the responsibility to remember, testify, and speak for those who cannot.