Two years after the Hamas massacre that changed their lives, survivors and bereaved families marked the anniversary Tuesday with heartbreaking words of loss, longing and determination to keep living.
Eli Sharabi, a former hostage from Kibbutz Be’eri whose wife and two daughters were murdered on Oct. 7, 2023, wrote an emotional Facebook post describing a pain that “only grows stronger.”
“Two years have passed since the day everything changed for me,” he wrote. “Our peaceful, happy life turned into hell—loss and pain beyond comprehension that will accompany me until my last day. I miss my pure souls: my wife Lianne, my daughters Noiya and Yahel, and my brother Yossi.”
Despite his grief, Sharabi said he chooses life each morning. “Since my release, I’ve chosen to live fully—with purpose and with hope,” he wrote. Referring to the renewed talks in Egypt and U.S. President Donald Trump’s hostage deal proposal, he added: “My entire family is holding its breath, praying for the return of my brother Yossi for a proper burial, and for the safe return of my dear friend Alon Ohel and all the hostages. We’ve suffered enough—we deserve a different reality. We want to start healing.”
Sharabi attached photos of his loved ones alongside the song It Will Be Good by Jasmine Moalem. “This is how I want you to remember them,” he wrote. “And I truly believe it will be good—that everyone will come home soon, amen.”
Sharabi was kidnapped from Be’eri and held in Gaza for 491 days. His wife and daughters were murdered, and his brother Yossi—also abducted—was killed in captivity. Since his release, Sharabi has been active in campaigns for the hostages’ return.
“You’ll forever be 32”: Or Levy’s haunting tribute to his wife
Fellow captivity survivor Or Levy, who was abducted alongside his wife Einav, shared his own anguished post.
“I feel like hell,” he wrote. “That’s what it’s like when the anniversary of your wife’s murder and your own kidnapping arrives.”
He described reliving every moment before their abduction. “In the hours before 6:28, I kept picturing how we went out for coffee, ate at your parents’, how you asked for help when he couldn’t fall asleep. That’s how I said goodbye to his son Almog—for 491 days.”
Levy recalled their last moments together. “Today I live those final seconds with you—how you were here, and suddenly you weren’t, and the world just kept going. Our child was left without a mother. I came back, but you didn’t. You’ll forever be 32.”
He also shared a drawing his son made after his return from captivity. “He asked that something be written on it. I hung it on the wall without really noticing. Today, of all days, I saw it again. I felt the need to put things in order,” he wrote. “So, Einav, maybe things aren’t okay now—but soon they will be. I love you, my wife, to the sky and back. You’ll always be with me, in memories and through Almog, who clearly got so much from you.”
“The world is sadder without you”: Alma Or, orphaned at 13
Alma Or, who was 13 when she was abducted to Gaza and whose parents were murdered in Be’eri, shared her struggle with grief and longing.
“I haven’t thought about you for a while,” she wrote, “but then a song plays, or someone says a word that reminds me, or a date comes up and my mind can’t hold it anymore. Suddenly, I’m flooded with thoughts of you. The tears come, and I remember what you meant to me. The longing hurts so much. I can’t live here without you anymore.”
She wrote of her memories: cooking with her father, family dinners, flights where her mother sat in the middle seat, afraid, holding their hands.
“You’re missing, and I have the biggest hole in the world,” she wrote. “Dad, you don’t even have a grave. I hope your body is still there and hasn’t disappeared—my heart couldn’t bear that. Everything is empty. Everything is harder without you. The world has been sadder for two years.”
“I think about my brothers still in the tunnels”: survivor Maya Regev
Former hostage Maya Regev, who was shot and abducted from the Nova music festival, wrote that she still relives the horror.
“Two years ago was the scariest moment of my life,” she wrote. “When I thought it was over. When pure evil looked me straight in the eyes. When I saw my leg hanging by the skin. When I thought my father would hear them kill me over the phone.”
She said she still prays daily for those left behind. “I think about my brothers still sitting there, rotting in the tunnels—two years later, in the same fear, the same hunger, the same longing. I just pray these are their last days there. That they come home soon and get the same gift I got: life.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to love”: Emily Damari on survivor’s guilt
Emily Damari, freed in the first stage of the second hostage deal, wrote on Instagram about her struggle to return to life.
“I came back in body after 471 days in Hamas captivity,” she wrote. “But I haven’t come back in spirit. I haven’t gone to parties or concerts, haven’t traveled for fun, and sometimes even eating feels wrong.”
She said she lives with survivor’s guilt. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to really love. I feel bad breathing clean air. But the hardest thing is hugging my mother and feeling terrible that I can while you”—addressing siblings Gali and Ziv Berman, still held in Gaza—“can’t hug yours. I miss you and want you home so I can start healing—not just in body, but in soul.”