LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Two years ago today, Eli Sharabi woke to the alarms on his kibbutz, Kibbutz Be'eri, in southern Israel on the border with Gaza. He rushed his teenage daughters, Noiya and Yahel, his wife, Lianne, and their dog into their safe room like he's done so many times before during rocket attacks. Five or 10 minutes and it will be over, he told his girls. But this time was different.
ELI SHARABI: We start to see the videos from Sderot and the Nova festival. And after that, it was messages from kids in Be'eri that says somebody shot Dad and Mom. Then Lianne and I got, you know, a decision that we are not going to fight. We understood that if somebody's fighting, they are shooting him. And we said we need to protect our girls.
FADEL: He heard someone smashing his windows. Then his dog barked in distress, leading the gunmen to the safe room where they hid.
SHARABI: I understood this is the minute they're going to kidnap me. So I just said to my daughters, I'll be back. I didn't realize it will be the last time I'll see them. Otherwise, I would probably act differently, maybe fight more, maybe say other things to my daughters and my wife.
FADEL: What he thought would be five or 10 minutes turned into 491 days. That's how long Sharabi was held captive by Hamas in Gaza. That whole time, he didn't know his family had been killed. He was finally released in the last hostage exchange deal. He recounts all he went through in his book, "Hostage," starting with the decision he made as he was being kidnapped.
SHARABI: It's time to act like I'm starting to survive from this moment. I just need to come back to my daughters, as I promised to them.
FADEL: And it seemed like throughout the book, your treatment got progressively worse. If you could talk about just the lack of control.
SHARABI: You ask permission for anything, to eat, to drink, to breathe, to speak. You're chained on your legs with iron chain 24/7. Just a week before my release, they took it off. And in the beginning, it was a little bit still food in Gaza. And the family took care of us, with food for three meals a day. The last six months in the tunnels, we ate one meal a day.
FADEL: At first, Sharabi was held in a home. Then he was moved to tunnels deep underground. It was there he was with other Israeli hostages, young men half his age that were taken from a music festival.
SHARABI: So I explained to them if we want to stay sane, we cannot wake up every morning and cry why we're not being released. We need to have a routine to wake up in the morning, praying, training, talking a lot every night. I forced them to say at least one thing good that happened to them. And at the beginning, they look at me like I'm insane. And after two or three weeks, it was like a muscle they worked on. And it was amazing for the strength we got from that, that we stay optimistic, that we are fine and we can survive together.
FADEL: What was it like the day you realized that you really were going to be released?
SHARABI: It's a moment that you imagine hundreds of times, the moment that somebody will come to say to you you're going home. And you believe it's going to be your happiest moment ever. And, unfortunately, it's become very complicated moment for us because they let only three of us from the four guys there that we are going home. And Alon is going to stay there until the next deal.
FADEL: He's referring to Alon Ohel, a 24-year-old who is still being held in Gaza. He's believed to be alive. Sharabi wants him home, along with his brother, Yossi. Yossi is believed to be dead.
There is a deal being negotiated in Egypt as we speak. I mean, what is your message in this moment to both your government and to Hamas?
SHARABI: We have to finish it. We have to finish it for both sides. We had enough, two years of war. In wars, nobody win in wars. It's always death around and lots of sadness. And we need to bring back home the remained 48 hostages, Israeli hostages, to their families. So please.
FADEL: You lived to be reunited with your wife and your teenage daughters, but when you finally got out, they were not there to greet you. How did you learn of their killings?
SHARABI: You know, a social worker approached me and said to me, your mother and your sister are waiting for you. And I immediately said to her, please bring me Lianne and my daughters. And she said, your mother and sister will tell you. And of course, you don't need to tell anything anymore.
FADEL: Tell me if this is too hard, but do you mind telling me about your girls and your wife?
SHARABI: Lianne was a very proud British woman that arrived on age 20 to Kibbutz Be'eri as a volunteer. We fell in love. And Noiya, our oldest daughter, was amazing. And Yahel was a very extreme girl, loved to jump from airplanes and scuba diving and play soccer. And they are with me every day. They will be there until the end of my life. But it will be alongside of my life, not instead of my life. I rebuilt my life. I have circles of love around me for my family and my friends that fought for me for 500 days. So I don't have the privilege to stay in bed and cry all day.
FADEL: When we started talking, you said, I love life. What did you learn about the meaning of life by surviving this experience?
SHARABI: Wow. That the most important thing in your life, it's people. It's your family. It's your friends. Fifty meters underground, you don't care if you have a Mercedes or a Subaru as a car. You don't care if you live in 50 square meter in your house or 200 square meter with a garden. You don't care about that. You just want another few minutes with your family to hug them and laugh with them. That's what you want.
FADEL: Eli Sharabi. His new book is "Hostage." It details the 491 days he was held in captivity in Gaza by Hamas. Thank you so much for speaking with us. I really appreciate it.
SHARABI: Thank you.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Elsewhere on MORNING EDITION today, we hear from inside Gaza from a family living in a place transformed by war.
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