Former hostages Sasha Troufanov and Sapir Cohen married Sunday evening, one year after their engagement, opening a new and emotional chapter in their lives after being kidnapped together on October 7 and freed separately.
Many former hostages attended the wedding, along with President Isaac Herzog and Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon, the former head of the IDF hostage command. “I want to say thank you for coming today to share this joy with us, this evening, this emotional moment,” Sasha said beneath the chuppah. “You were with us all the way. Thank you very much. I love you.”
Among the captivity survivors who attended the ceremony were Arbel Yehoud, Ariel Cunio, Shani Goren, Moran Stella Yanai, Rom Braslavski, Eitan Horn and Danielle Aloni.
Herzog, who arrived with his wife, Michal, told guests at the ceremony that he had once said he would not attend any wedding until all the hostages had returned.
Sasha proposed to Sapir a year ago, five months after he was freed from captivity and after spending 498 days in Gaza. Cohen was kidnapped with him from his family’s home in Kibbutz Nir Oz and was released in the November 2023 hostage deal together with Sasha’s mother, Yelena, and grandmother, Irena.
Troufanov immigrated to Israel with his parents when he was three years old. He studied electrical engineering at Ben-Gurion University and, after completing his studies, moved to central Israel and began working at Amazon. On the weekend of October 7, he came with Sapir to visit his parents at the kibbutz. Sasha’s father, Vitaly, was murdered that Saturday.
Sasha and Sapir’s wedding
After his release from captivity, Troufanov described in several interviews the hardships he endured at the hands of Islamic Jihad and Hamas terrorists. He said that when he arrived in the Gaza Strip, he was beaten by Palestinian civilians and feared he would be killed.
During the first weeks, he was held above ground inside a cage. He was later moved into tunnels, where he spent most of his time in complete isolation, under harsh conditions of darkness, crowding and deprivation. He described a lasting sense of losing hope, but said he clung to the thought of returning to Israel and reuniting with his family and his partner.
Sapir was born and raised in Kiryat Ata. Her parents, Ziva and Eli, and her three brothers, Aviv, Barak and Eden, worked extensively for her release while she was held hostage.
Sasha and Rom Braslavski
One of the captivity survivors at the wedding was Rom Braslavski, who was abducted to Gaza with Troufanov in the same car trunk. On Sunday evening, he posted a photo of the two of them from the wedding and wrote: “Sasha, our acquaintance from Gaza may have been short, but it is etched deep in my memory. We were together in the same room, held as ‘prisoners’ of Islamic Jihad, after a year of captivity, inside Rafah, just before the IDF’s major incursion.”
“Precisely during that time, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent you to me,” Braslavski wrote. “How did events unfold so that we are not together in that same stinking room with rats in Rafah, but under your chuppah, as you marry the love of your heart, who was kidnapped together with you, and you are marrying her. You are not lovebirds. You are a pair of fighters. And I admire you.” Braslavski added that he was deeply moved to accompany Troufanov on his wedding day.
“No one is happier than I am to be with you on this day,” he wrote. “I wish you small and happy children who will know no evil, who will know no war, God willing. Your father is proud of you from above, my dear brother.”