by Eli Sharabi
First published 2025
Eli Sharabi lives quietly in Kibbutz Be'eri with his British wife Lianne and teenage daughters Noiya and Yahel. On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists break into their home and drag him barefoot from his front door as his family watches. They force him into the underground tunnel network beneath Gaza, where he spends the next 491 days in captivity. Above ground, war explodes across the region while Sharabi endures starvation, beatings, and isolation in the suffocating darkness below. His captors subject him to relentless psychological abuse designed to break his will. Yet Sharabi refuses to surrender. He forms bonds with fellow prisoners, draws strength from his faith, and makes the daily choice to survive. Through hunger, pain, and crushing loneliness, he holds onto hope that he will see his family again. This memoir captures both the brutality of his imprisonment and his determination to live.
Genres: historical-fiction, contemporary, action, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, survival
Setting: Be'eri, Gaza, Israel
Period: 2023
208 pages · Hardcover · Harper Influence
Content warnings: physical-abuse, torture