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Montreal Gazette
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Montreal Gazette
Brownstein: ‘I can't go back to my life before,' says former Hamas hostage on eve of Montreal visit
News By Eliya Cohen has been to hell — but he's not completely back. He is still trying to deal with the trauma of having been held hostage by Hamas for 505 days, mostly in an underground tunnel in Gaza, mostly shackled in chains and pretty much always famished. Cohen was snatched by Hamas in a roadside bunker after leaving the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. He was released and returned to Israel in an emaciated state — having lost 45 pounds — on Feb. 8 with hostages Eli Sharabi and Or Levy, with whom he was held in captivity. Alon Ohel, Cohen's best friend, was with them as well, but he has not been released. 'I don't think I can find any peace right now, because all I can think about are those hostages still being held like Alon, who have no food and are in chains,' says Cohen, 28, in a video call interview. 'How can I find peace knowing what these hostages are going though right now?' Ziv Abud, Cohen's fiancée, has joined him on this video call. 'His body is here, but his heart and his mind are still in Gaza,' Abud says. After various prisoner exchanges, an estimated 58 hostages out of the 251 abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7 are still in Gaza. But that number includes the bodies of at least 35 who have been confirmed dead by Israel Defense Forces. About 1,200 were killed in the initial Hamas assault, which led to the war and has resulted in the deaths of about 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry. 'Eliya knew nothing of what was going on above him,' Abud notes. 'He and the other hostages were totally isolated from the news.' Says Cohen: 'I'm not a political person. I don't want to talk about situations I don't know much about. But I do believe that our government can take out the hostages just like they took me out. So they can also take out all the others.' Cohen will talk about his ordeal at a public event at the Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal on Wednesday. Abud will be joining him onstage. This will mark the first visit to Montreal of a released Hamas hostage. Cohen and Abud then head to Toronto the following day as part of their first speaking engagements in Canada. Abud was also with Cohen in the roadside bunker under siege after running from the Nova fest. They recall grenades being lobbed into the bunker by Hamas and being tossed back by those inside. Many died in the attack. Cohen and Abud survived by lying under the dead bodies, but Cohen, shot in the leg and losing consciousness, was seized while Abud managed to avoid capture. The next thing Cohen remembered was waking up in a truck in Gaza with other hostages, all being hit with rifle butts and spit upon to the cheers of crowds. He was initially placed in an apartment building before being moved to the underground tunnel, his home for nearly a year and a half. Apart from the hunger resulting from sharing meagre portions of pita and peas with the others, he remembers being in chains, which were only removed every two months or so before being allowed to wash. But as it became apparent that he was to be released in February, food rations were increased significantly in order that he and the two others wouldn't appear as skeletal in the public eye. 'After the deal was reached (to release us), the terrorists started to be good with us,' Cohen says. 'The relationships started to be good, just because they wanted me to get out and say to the world that Hamas is OK. But that didn't (work).' Cohen does credit his captors with teaching him to speak Arabic. Before being held hostage, he hardly spoke any English. He credits American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whom he met briefly at the beginning of his captivity, for passing along the book Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo. Goldberg-Polin was later found dead in an underground tunnel. 'I read that book 12 times during my captivity, and I figured I learned about 2,500 English words as a result,' Cohen says. I ask Cohen if he has thoughts about writing something about his hostage experience, perhaps even a book. 'This is his dream,' Abud answers for him. 'To write a book and even to make a movie. But we realize it will take time, and we are looking for the right person to put this all together. We have a special story to tell.' That they do. Planned to propose to Abud that day Cohen recalls having a romantic, life-changing plan at the Nova fest prior to the Hamas attack. Unbeknownst to Abud, he had brought an engagement ring with him and had been set to propose to her the morning of the assault. And what was intended to be 'one of the happiest days in our lives' turned out to be the most horrific, Cohen said. Prior to his kidnapping, Cohen dabbled in managing apartment buildings, but his principal focus and passion had always been music. He had attended numerous festivals around the country and abroad with Abud and had even orchestrated a few himself. Now he is unemployed while undergoing a 'healing process' in Tel Aviv. 'His greatest pleasure was producing music festivals,' Abud says. 'Going to music festivals was a regular (occurrence) for us. Going to Nova was nothing (different) for us. It was just like going to another party. 'Eliya feels that music connects people. We have friends in all communities. We had recently been to India where we met up with some of our Iranian friends. Eliya had just gone to another festival outside the country where he was with his Lebanese friends. We've met so many people from around the world. I don't know if their minds have changed (about us), but we haven't changed our minds about them and they'll remain our friends. We have no hate in our hearts. 'Eliya can't even hate the people who were holding him. He can't blame them, because this is what they see on TV. This is the message Hamas pushes.' Cohen nods in agreement. 'But I can't go back to my life before, until I see Alon and the other hostages (being held) come back. Alon was my best friend from even before the attack,' says Cohen, who hasn't received news about him since being released. Cohen says it's vital that he have some hope. 'We really need to value the small things in life,' he says. 'Only when something is taken away from you can you ever start learning how to cherish it. Like even just seeing your mother make coffee for you in the morning.' Cohen acknowledges a return to any sort of similar normalcy would certainly help for starters. 'Amen to that,' he sighs, managing the faintest of smiles.
The Guardian
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Israeli hostage only discovered fiancee had survived 7 October after his release
An Israeli hostage only discovered his fiancee had survived the 7 October attacks after his release on Saturday, Israeli media has reported. Eliya Cohen had spent more than 500 days in captivity fearing his bride-to-be, Ziv Abud, was dead. The last time they had seen each other, they were hiding in a shelter with relatives and friends after attending the Nova festival. An emotive video taken by the Israeli Defense Forces shows them embracing and bursting into tears when they first see each other. Abud, who can barely speak through her tears, tells Cohen he is her love, her life and her darling. Then they gaze into each other's eyes and, in between kisses, Cohen asks her how she is. While campaigning for Cohen's release last year, Abud told the Guardian: 'Hamas threw nine grenades into our shelter and I heard Eliya screaming and he told me that he was hurt and after two minutes I felt his hands slipping away as they pulled him away.' She was buried under bodies for six hours. When she was rescued, she found that Cohen was missing and that her nephew and his partner had been shot dead next to her in the shelter, which is now referred to as the 'death bunker' in Israel. Of the 27 who hid there, 16 were killed by Hamas, four were taken hostage and the rest were rescued by Israeli soldiers. When she discovered that before his abduction, Cohen had bought an engagement ring and had been planning to propose to her, Abud started to call herself his fiancee. In January 2024, she told the Guardian: 'I don't feel alive now. I'm just waiting. Every day I'm just waiting for him, for all of the kidnapped. We can't just go on when they're not home,' she said. She wrote on Instagram: 'I often think about the moment you return. How will you react when you find out that I'm alive?' Some of their friends died on 7 October and she worried about how she would tell him what happened. 'What will I tell you? How will I tell you about Amit, Yonatan, and [the] hundreds of our friends who are no longer alive?' Cohen was reportedly held chained in a tunnel for most of his captivity together with Or Levy and El Sharabi, who has been released, and Alon Ohel, who has not. So far, 25 Israeli captives have been released. In total, 33 Israelis – including the remains of eight who have died or been killed in captivity – are expected to be handed over in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Telegraph
13-02-2025
- Telegraph
Freed hostages say my fiancé is alive – but chained up, starving and under the impression I'm dead
Ziv Abud's eyes are red raw from exhaustion and tears. Happy tears and sad tears. For 16 months she has travelled around the world meeting prime ministers, journalists and anyone who would listen, in an effort to get her boyfriend returned home from Gaza, without even knowing if he was still alive. Earlier this week she heard the news she had long been dreaming of: her beloved Eliya Cohen is alive. This week marks eight years since they became a couple. Since Cohen's abduction by Hamas, his mother has told Abud that he was planning to propose on their next holiday to Thailand, and she calls Cohen her fiancé. But, along with the new knowledge that Cohen is alive, Abud says in an interview over Zoom, came the horror of learning that he is being starved and tortured and has been shackled in an airless tunnel, injured, for almost his entire time in captivity. Cohen, 27, an events organiser, was mainly kept in captivity with Eli Sharabi and Or Levy, two of the hostages whose emaciated appearances shocked the world when they were released alongside Ohad Ben Ami last Saturday. A family liaison officer at the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) updated Abud the following day on what they had been told by the released men about Cohen. Families of the hostages have also been passing information between themselves on an unofficial basis, having become close since October 7. 'I was grateful and happy but also worried and fearful all at the same time,' says Abud, of the IDF update. That evening she wrote a long letter to him on Instagram explaining her feelings. It said: 'I know that what happened and is happening to you in captivity is unimaginable and what you are going through is one of the most difficult things. And it is so hard to be here without an option to make things easier for you, without the ability to hug you.' Sharabi came out to learn that his British wife Lianne and their two daughters had been murdered on October 7 2023 at their home in Kibbutz Be'eri. Levy also learned that his wife Einav was murdered running away from Hamas terrorists at the Nova Festival. The two men were separated from Cohen a few days before their release. It is believed that he is being kept with Alon Ohel, a pianist who, like Cohen, was taken from the Nova Festival. 'It breaks my heart to learn what he is going through from the people who were in the tunnels with him,' says Abud, 27, a marketing executive who was with Cohen at Nova. 'We have heard that he is wounded and hasn't had medical care, that his leg has been chained the entire time, that he has been tortured, not seen any sunlight, has been starved – eating maybe just one piece of pita bread a day – and that he is disconnected from the world. He doesn't know that I am alive – in fact he thinks I am dead. He doesn't know how hard we have been fighting for him.' 'I know that you don't know that I'm here, waiting, but I never stop hoping and waiting,' Abud wrote in her letter to Cohen on Instagram. 'Every day. Every moment.' She has never let herself believe he was dead. Since October 7 her thoughts have been focused solely on ways to bring him home. 'I try not to think too much. I try to put all the fears to one side. Sometimes I cry before I go to sleep. I have a lot of dreams about what happened. But my focus is on doing everything I can to bring him home. Nothing else. I am like a robot.' The freed men who were with Cohen are dealing with their own demons and are being closely protected so she hasn't yet had a chance to talk to them. For now, she is relying on what their families have told her and the press; trying to piece together a picture of what life has been like for him. 'The hostages that have come back don't speak too much about what they went through but they have said it was very, very scary,' she says. 'They are very weak and we don't want to pressure them more. We have to give them time because we don't want to add to the psychological pressure. We hope that once they get strong, they will want to talk to us because the four who were held together must have become like brothers. For now, we have to wait for them to be ready.' In the meantime, Abud has to work through her exhaustion, her nightmares. Earlier today, Hamas announced it would continue with the hostage deal originally struck last month, after saying on Tuesday that it was suspending releases. 'I am so tired from fighting so hard for this release,' she says. 'I know I have to stay strong for him. To keep talking about him.' Abud is not political. She has put her faith, rightly or wrongly, in politicians. 'I trust Trump and Netanyahu and we hope, and we believe, that they will do the right thing. I just want Eliya and the other hostages to come back home safe, alive and soon. I am not sure anyone knows what is the right thing to do in a situation like this – we have never been in something like this before. We just have to have faith and hope and trust.' Cohen, at least, is on the list to be released in the first stage of the ceasefire agreement because of the leg injury he sustained on October 7. If the ceasefire holds, he could even be released this weekend – it is believed nine out of the remaining 17 hostages due to be released in the first stage are alive. The recently released hostages have confirmed that they saw 10 other abducted men alive. Of those, only Cohen is due out in the next few weeks. Abud, whose story was told in the BBC documentary Surviving October 7th: Will Dance Again, knows that the man who could come out will be very different to the person whose hand she was clutching when he was snatched by terrorists after the pair took refuge in a bomb shelter, having fled the Nova site. Of the 29 known to have been in the shelter, only seven made it home. Among the dead was Aner Shapira, the 22-year-old who stood just inside the doorway and threw seven grenades back at the terrorists before being killed by the eighth. Several more grenades were thrown into the shelter and Abud remembers Cohen screaming and telling her that he had been hurt in the leg as he clutched onto her hand. Falling in and out of consciousness, she distinctly remembers the moment when she felt his hand being dragged away from hers. Six hours later, after being found buried under dead bodies by a man who had come to look for his son, she stood up and saw that her nephew Amit and his girlfriend Karin, who were at the party with her, were dead, and that Cohen and three others had disappeared. In total, Abud knows 60 people who were killed at the Nova festival. The information she has been told from the released hostages is that, when Eliya was put on a truck by terrorists, he saw them shoot into the shelter and presumed she had been killed. 'He did give a message to the other hostages to tell his mother that he was saying his prayers and was strong and doing ok but he did not give a message to me because he does not think I'm alive,' she says. A wedding is still something she dreams of but she too is a different person, transformed from the party-loving woman Eliya fell for. 'We will start with the healing and go from there,' says Abud of her hopes for when Cohen is freed. 'I want to believe that he is still the same Eliya, that he will love the same things we used to love. We loved to travel. We loved to dance. But we will see. He has had all this time of people telling him what he must do. When he is home he will need to do what he wants to do. And I will be with him, of course.'
