A Legacy of Hope – Eli Sharabi Honours His Wife and Daughters

In memory of his wife Lianne and daughters Noya and Yahel, Eli Sharabi is turning profound personal loss into a legacy of hope and compassion. In partnership with Shalva, Israel’s leading organisation for disability care and inclusion, the Shalva Sharabi Family Center currently under construction in Ashkelon will support families raising individuals with disabilities while also providing care for those coping with trauma and PTSD in Israel’s southern communities.

The Sharabi Family
On 7 October 2023, as terrorists from Gaza burst into the Sharabi family home in Kibbutz Be’eri, Eli Sharabi and his wife, Lianne, thought only of their children. They threw their bodies over their two daughters, Noya (16) and Yahel (13), in a desperate attempt to protect them. As Eli was dragged from the house by gunmen, he made one final plea for their lives, shouting that his wife and daughters held British passports.

Realising he was being kidnapped, Eli turned back toward his family and called out, “I’ll be back.” It was the last time he ever saw them.

Eli Sharabi (53) spent 16 months (491 days) in filthy tunnels under the Gaza Strip with his legs chained, starving and enduring terrible hygienic conditions. He survived the horrors of captivity. But on the day of his release, another devastating truth awaited him. Turning to the social worker escorting him, he asked quietly, “Please bring me Lianne and my daughters.” She replied, “Your mother and your sister will tell you.” In that moment, Eli understood the bitter truth—his wife and daughters had been murdered. He learned that his wife and two teenage daughters had been killed in their home by the Hamas-led terrorists on the same day that he had been taken hostage.

Despite this profound loss, Eli has shown remarkable resilience. In his recently released book, Hostage, he writes: “I want to live. I love life. I choose life.” Those words, L’Chaim, to life, have become Eli Sharabi’s guiding principle since his release.

“Eli asked himself one question: “How do I honour the memory of my family?””

In the aftermath of tragedy, Eli asked himself one question: “How do I honour the memory of my family?”

The answer lay in the values they lived by—dignity, compassion, and inclusion. His daughter Noya had volunteered for years with people with disabilities and determined to transform grief into purpose, Eli made a decision. “I want to dedicate something in their memory at Shalva,” he said. “That’s what they would have wanted.”

Eli Sharabi with Yossi Samuels, the blind and deaf son of the founder of Shalva, Kalman Samuels. | Photos: Shalva Israel

The new Shalva Center in Ashkelon, part of Israel’s leading network of care for people with disabilities and their families, will be named the Sharabi Family Center.

A Continuation of Values
More than a building, the Center will reflect the compassion, inclusion, and responsibility for others that Lianne, Noya, and Yahel embodied.

The center will offer diagnostic evaluations, therapeutic services, and professional guidance for individuals with disabilities and their families, alongside specialised support for those affected by trauma following the 7 October attacks and the ongoing challenges facing the region.

Serving communities across Israel’s south, including Ashkelon, Sderot, Netivot, Ofakim, and surrounding areas, the center will bring Shalva’s multidisciplinary expertise closer to families who often struggle to access these essential services.

“I am honoured to introduce the Shalva Sharabi Family Center in Ashkelon, which will provide vital support for children with disabilities and their families,” said Eli Sharabi. “My wife Lianne and our daughters Noya and Yahel always looked for ways to help others. It is my hope that the spirit of love and goodness they shared will continue through this center.”

“The Shalva Sharabi Family Center stands as a powerful testament to resilience transforming loss into action”

“This center represents the very heart of Shalva’s mission,” said Yochanan Samuels, CEO of Shalva. “Together with Eli Sharabi, we are ensuring that families in Israel’s south, especially those facing the dual challenges of disability and trauma, receive the professional care, compassion, and community they need to rebuild and move forward.”

The Shalva Sharabi Family Center stands as a powerful testament to resilience transforming loss into action and ensuring that families facing disability and trauma receive the care, support, and hope they deserve.

The Shalva Sharabi Family Center in Ashkelon | Photo: Shalva Israel

Support for Regional Trauma
Located in an area deeply scarred by recent events, the Center will serve families facing disability, uncertainty, and emotional pain.

Professional Care with Human Warmth
The Center will offer high-level professional care alongside community, dignity, and belonging. Eli Sharabi’s story, and the Center established in his family’s name, stands as a testament to lives taken too soon, and to the enduring human capacity to choose meaning, responsibility, and life, even after unimaginable loss.

Hostage – The First Memoir by an Israeli Hostage by Eli Sharabi
On 7 October, 2023, Hamas terrorists stormed Kibbutz Be’eri, shattering the peaceful life Eli Sharabi had built with his British wife, Lianne, and their teenage daughters, Noiya and Yahel. Dragged barefoot out of his front door while his family watched in horror, Sharabi was plunged deep into the suffocating darkness of Gaza’s tunnels. As war raged above him, he endured a gruelling 491 days in captivity—all the while holding onto the hope that he would one day be reunited with his loved ones.

In the first memoir by a released Israeli hostage, and the fastest-selling book in Israel’s history, Sharabi offers a searing firsthand account of survival under unimaginable conditions— starvation, isolation, physical beatings, and psychological abuse at the hands of his captors.

Eli Sharabi’s story is one of hunger and heartache, of physical pain, longing, loneliness and a helplessness that threatens to destroy the soul. But it is also a story of strength, of resilience, and of the human spirit’s refusal to surrender. It is about the camaraderie forged in captivity, the quiet power of faith, and one man’s unrelenting decision to choose life, time and time again.

Reminiscent of Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, “Hostage” is a profound witness to history, so that it shall be neither forgotten nor erased.