Ex-hostage Eliya Cohen recounts Hamas killing captive who tried to flee & ‘Nazi-like’ treatment by terrorists

A month and a half ago, Eliya Cohen was released from captivity in Gaza after being held hostage by Hamas terrorists for 505 long days.

Now, for the first time, Cohen shares his harrowing experiences in captivity, reveals details about the fate of fellow hostages, and speaks openly about the lasting psychological and physical effects he continues to endure.

In his exclusive interview on Israel’s Channel 12, Cohen began by addressing the political leadership: “We tell them what we went through there: hunger, chains, and violence, they hear all of it – yet they still choose to return to fighting.”

“We need to find a solution. Sit at the negotiating table and figure out how to get these people out. In my opinion, it’s a death sentence,” he said, before beginning his story.

Cohen and his girlfriend, Ziv, were at the Nova rave party on Oct. 7, 2023, when the Hamas invasion began. Together with dozens of others, they attempted to hide at a nearby bomb shelter, which would later be dubbed the “shelter of death.”

“There weren't many people there; that was the first time I met Alon [Ohel, who remains a hostage in Gaza],” Cohen said. However, the shelter quickly filled with people fleeing the terrorists and the rocket attacks.

“We realized this was much more than rockets, but we had full faith the army was on its way,” Cohen said, explaining why they decided to stay in the shelter. Then, pickups with Hamas terrorists arrived at the shelter, and they started throwing hand grenades.

“Someone screamed: ‘Grenade! Grenade.’ I jumped on Ziv, collapsed on her, and the first thing that came out of my mouth was: ‘Ziv, I love you.’ The grenade exploded and killed everyone at the entrance. Ziv answered me: ‘Eliyahu, I love you.’”

The heroic actions of Aner Shapira, who threw back several grenades until being killed himself, granted them some respite. After Shapira was killed, Cohen, his girlfriend, and others tried to hide under the growing pile of bodies in the cramped shelter. Convinced their deaths were imminent, they began to say their goodbyes.

“Well, at least up there, we’ll be together. No one can disturb us,” Ziv told Cohen, shortly before he was shot in the leg and lost consciousness.

When he next opened his eyes, three Hamas terrorists were staring at him. Cohen said, “They had phones and flashlights, taking pictures of us. With a crazy smile on their faces. I will never forget that smile. I’ll go to sleep with that smile. I live with it. That’s the smile of my abduction.”

The terrorists put him on their pickup truck and started driving back to Gaza. “They beat us with sticks, the butt of guns to our heads, stepping on us, and spitting on us.”

At this point, he shared a previously undisclosed story about the fate of one of the hostages, whose name he did not reveal.

“He chose to take the situation into his own hands and said: ‘I’m jumping.’ We told him ‘Don’t do it,’ but as they drove, he did. They stopped the truck and shot him dead.”

After arriving in Gaza, the terrorists allowed him to shower. “I saw that I was shattered, bleeding. My body was covered in pieces of burned skin.” Next, a doctor came to check him, saw Cohen’s bullet wound, and decided to pull out the bullet without anesthesia, only giving him a cloth to bite down on.

“You can’t scream,” the doctor said. “If the civilians outside hear you, they’ll come in, and I have no way to protect you.”

Cohen, Ohel and Or Levy were transferred into a tunnel, where the physical and psychological torture began.

“On the day we landed in the tunnel, we had already met the chains. Tied really tightly, they cut your legs. You go to the bathroom, and it takes you ten minutes. You think, ‘Wow, I'm actually in chains, I'm like an ape’.”

“We were in chains on our legs for months. The only time they take them off is when you go to shower. Once every two months.”

However, the hunger was even more challenging.

“In the end, you can deal with everything,” Cohen began.“You can deal with them humiliating you, you can deal with them cursing at you, you can deal with the chains on your legs, but hunger is a daily struggle because, beyond being hungry, you're also fighting for your life. Every night you go to sleep thinking, ‘What am I doing tomorrow to get that piece of pita bread?'”

Cohen recounted how the terrorists tortured them by lying about when they would receive food, or how much.

“Suddenly, they brought less. Suddenly, instead of one pita per person, we had three pitas and they told you, ‘Okay, share. Maybe later I’ll bring you another one,’” Cohen said, “You find yourself begging – and they enjoy it.”

“They would come into our room once or twice a week and say, ‘Okay, everyone take off your clothes and underwear.’ They check if you're thin enough and decide whether to reduce your food.”

“You look at them and see the smile on their faces. You understand it's nonsense, but you wonder how low they can go.”

Cohen added, “There's nothing more Nazi than that. I hate the comparisons to the Holocaust, but this is as close as it gets.”

He also described how the terrorists would retaliate against the hostages in response to military setbacks or reports of deteriorating conditions for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

“Every day they bomb Gaza, he (the terrorist) enters the room and tightens our shackles more,” Cohen said, “A lot of times you find yourself in situations where they come and say to you, ‘You’re abusing our security prisoners, I’m abusing you here’.”

The terrorists made it clear that any sign of a rescue attempt by the Israeli army would result in the immediate execution of the hostages. At one point, as troops closed in on their tunnel, he said that he and Ohel prepared themselves for what they believed would be their execution.

“Suddenly, an officer comes in and tells them: ‘We’re not killing them. Take off the shackles. We’re running from here.’ That’s the moment we really got out of that tunnel.”

Cohen explained that they emerged from a shaft hidden in a teacher’s room inside a school, before being transferred to an abandoned tunnel without electricity, water or food rations.

“We sat in a room where the light was just a flashlight. Of course, there was no hygiene before, so, you know, hygiene wasn’t... it didn’t really matter anymore. Of course, there were no beds to sleep on, so we slept on the floor.”

Cohen and the other hostages remained in that tunnel until the hostage deal that freed him, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy was implemented.

“They started padding us with tons of food, especially after Eli and Or were released,” he said, “You're so insecure from the uncertainty of food and nutrition that you want to put anything in your mouth.”

However, the next shock came when Cohen was informed that he would be released, while Ohel would remain in captivity.

“Alon panicked. He was very scared and started crying,” Cohen said, adding that he tried to console him, that he would be released soon after, but then the ceasefire broke down.

“He can't see with one eye. In a condition that’s probably not good,” Cohen said about Ohel. “We hug and cry, I tell him to be strong. I promise him that just because I’m going up, doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten him.”

Upon his release, Cohen was told by IDF personnel that his parents were waiting for him across the border, together with his girlfriend Ziv, whom he thought had been murdered.

“I told her: ‘You can take me back for another 500 days, as long as you tell me Ziv is alive.’”

Having finally returned home, Cohen has a long way to go in his rehabilitation. He sustained serious injuries to his leg, suffers from hearing loss, in addition to the psychological impact of his captivity.

“Eliya returned with a shattered soul, he experienced a trauma that he himself still cannot digest,” according to a statement from the fundraising campaign his family and friends created to aid the recovery.

“He has difficulty functioning, barely sleeps, suffers from nightmares and flashbacks, he can’t be in places that are too noisy or crowded, every little noise makes him jump and immediately brings him back there.”

“Eliya and Ziv face a long and complex rehabilitation journey; they suffer from severe post-traumatic stress disorder and are unable to work or function.”