Captivity survivor Eli-Ha Cohen was interviewed this evening (Tuesday) by Channel 12 and gave chilling testimony about his days in captivity.
He recalled the difficult moments on October 7th when they arrived at the shelter that was named 'Death Shelter'.
""We hear vans stopping. Lots of vans, shouting in Arabic. They threw the first grenade. Someone screams: 'Grenade.' I jumped on Ziv, I literally fell on her, and the first thing that came out of my mouth was: 'Ziv, I love you.' The grenade exploded and killed everyone in the entrance. Ziv said back to me: 'By God, I love you.'".
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Suddenly he sees Aner Shapira get up and start throwing the grenades back. "Another grenade was thrown. He caught it and threw it out to them. I saw it with my own eyes. It was clear to everyone what he was doing. At some point Aner is holding a grenade, and I see that they actually managed to shoot him. He falls to the floor and the grenade explodes with him. That's the point where I say: 'I can't believe it.' The guy who's guarding us is gone.".
He said that after Aner, others continued to throw the grenades outside: "I remember a girl picking up a grenade and throwing it outside – and there was the last grenade that ended up breaking Hirsch's hand. After that, no one got up to throw grenades anymore.".
At one point he was shot in the leg. Cohen says he said "Listen Israel," opened his eyes and saw three terrorists: "They were with phones and flash, taking pictures of us. With a crazy smile on their faces. A crazy smile. I will never forget that smile in the world. I go to sleep with that smile, I live it. That's the smile of my kidnapping.".
On the way to Gaza, there was another abductee with them, who tried to escape and jump out of the vehicle. "He chose to take the situation into his own hands and said: 'I'm jumping.' We told him: 'Don't do it,' but while driving he did. They stop the van and they shoot him to death. We continue the journey to Gaza as if nothing had happened. As if a guy hadn't just jumped out and been shot, and we continue driving.".
In Gaza, he undergoes surgery without anesthesia to remove the bullet from his leg. "No injection. Just with a damp piece of cloth in my mouth. They tell me, 'You're not allowed to shout. If the civilians outside hear you, they'll come into the house and I have no way to protect you.'".
In the tunnels, he meets other hostages, and from there, a psychological war by Hamas terrorists begins. They abuse the hostages, sometimes stripping them, tying their feet in chains, humiliating them, and most importantly, starving the hostages. "You find yourself begging - and they enjoy it. They know they're starving you.".
Throughout his captivity, he thought his partner Ziv had been murdered in a suicide bombing. "In my belief, in no scenario in the world could I have imagined that she would have survived this. At first, it was very difficult for me, realizing that I had lost my partner. From the day we met, we have been living together.".
After the tunnel where he was being held was bombed, he and Alon Ahel were transferred to another hiding place. Before he was released, he convinced Alon that his turn was also coming. "He can't see in one eye. He's probably not in a good state. We sit, we have a lot of heart-to-heart talks. I tell him: Don't forget where you came from and your family. We hug and cry, I tell him to be strong. I promise him that I'm going up, I'm not saying I'm forgetting him.".
Then comes the moment he discovers that his partner is alive. "As we get out of the ambulance, someone comes up to me and says: Welcome to Israel. I look at her and say: 'No, this is the one who is going to tell me the good news.'.
""Then she tells me: 'Well, your mother and father are waiting for you at Kibbutz Reim.' Then she tells me: 'And Ziv.' Eli-Ha doesn't believe it: "I tell her: 'What about 'and Ziv?', 'Are you working on me?' She answers: 'No.' We both started crying like crazy, screaming in the car." I told her: 'You can bring me back now for another 500 days, the main thing is that you tell me one more time that Ziv is alive.'".
During the interview, he addresses the prime minister and asks him to step up efforts to free the kidnapped. "It simply doesn't make sense for me to talk to the government. That we tell them what we went through there, the hunger, the chains and the violence, that they hear all this - and yet choose to return to fighting. There are people underground there. We need to find a solution. To sit at the negotiating table and rack our brains on how to get these people out of there. In my opinion, that's a death sentence.".
""They stripped us, there's nothing more Nazi than that": After 505 days in captivity, Elie Cohen speaks in his first interview about the torture, starvation, and abuse in the Hamas tunnels.
A month and a half since he returned, he is trying to build a new routine for himself. To strengthen his body, which needs recovery, to gain the many pounds he lost, and to deal with his damaged hearing.… pic.twitter.com/3etuCORYAb
— The News - N12 (@N12News) April 1, 2025
