Exclusive: 100 feet underground, barely air enough to breathe and do not share light, not measuring only six feet in three meters with three more men, and recently played the taoca Tal Shoham divided by a survival fox.
Shoham is forcibly taken from Kibbutza Be’eri 7. October 2023. Years. His wife and children, at the age of four and eight, were cold on that day, but he did not know that when he threw it in the trunk of the car and drove in Gaza Hamas terrorists. He didn’t even know if his family was alive; Hoping to save, he surrendered to terrorists just before they set fire to the house where his family is hiding.
He would spend eight and a half months in the underground tunnel, and five more months trapped in five different houses deep in Gaza, where his apostates were shot him and denied him and deprived him in basic human comfort.
But he gave the mission: he is determined not to lose humanity. Even in the moments when he was afraid to face death, he tried to stay focused. “I’m not a victim. Even if this is over, I’ll finish him high, I look death in the eye. I won’t be broken, and I won’t give me self-pity. We’re stronger than the other side,” he said.
It’s been three weeks since he came home, and he’s ready to speak. Kibbutz Be’eri is just nine kilometers – about five and a half miles – GazaBut that a short distance is a practical ocean between what describes as two worlds. “Semi-hour drive, two separate worlds,” he said. “First – incredibly surreal, cruelly out of reason. And only 30 minutes (on this side of the border), the world of health, logic, dignity and compassion.”
He remembers every detail of his 505 days in captivity. Tal wants to tell her story because of two fellow prisoners that remain behindstarving, abused and at constant risk of death. “Just as someone gets out of the living alive, I showed up from the tunnel I was holding on and was born again,” he says. But men call his “brothers,” Evatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal still stick to the ground. “I can’t sleep at night knowing they’re still there,” he says.
7. October 2023. Years
Israeli hostages Tal Shoham and Aver Mengista were trimmed with Palestinian Hamas terrorists while standing on stage during the release in Rafah in South Gaza on 22. February. (Omar al-Qattaa / AFP via Getty Images)
Tal and his wife and the children came from north of Israel to Kibutz Be’ers to spend Simchat Torah rest with his wife’s parents and were in the house when a terrorist attack began. He said everyone entered a safe room, and as the sounds of the shooting approached closer, they tried to barter inside. But terrorists opened the window, and Tal was afraid to throw in a grenade if the family did not surrender. In the same street, terrorists set fire to each other home, burning people inside in life.
“I went out and raised my hands,” he said. “The man with killing in his eyes brought me to the road and a vehicle. Some of the heavy-armed terrorists saw me. Some people were in shock, the bodies of people who knew, they laugh, they laugh.”
Former Israeli Potac Tal Shoham stands in the destroyed house of his laws on Kibbutz Be’ers. (Georges Schneider)
The terrorists threw it in the trunk of the car and drove it over the border in Gaza. The crowd gathered there. “Teenagers with sticks ran toward me, trying to beat me from all sides,” he says. Getting him out of the car, his kidnappers pointed to the rifle in him, ready, he believed, to carry him out and tried to make him kneel. “I said,” I can’t control if you kill me or not, I pick up my hands – but I refused to kneel. “If you want to kill me, kill me, but you won’t do me like Isis.”
He was then paraded through the streets in what he described as “victory in March”. “They shouted” soldiers! Pig! Zionist! “Mob gathered, guys with wooden clubs who were trying to hit me. But I just waved and smiled. I didn’t show fear.” You won’t see terror in my eyes. “
34 days of insulation
He was first taken to the family home, where he was withheld, I was always invented, 34 days. Although he was allowed periodically shower, the captivity was otherwise difficult.
His food was strictly rational. “The first three days I had a bread pie. Then they stopped giving it to me,” he says. “Dwindled food utensils. Some days I would get three tablespoons of avocado and three dates, or half orange from wood in the yard.”
But the worst torment didn’t know if his family was alive. “I am 40 years old. I never experienced such suffering in my life. Insulation, being alone with tireless thoughts – it was worse than great hunger.”
To endure, he made a heartbell decision. “I had to accept that my family was dead,” says Tal. .
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Tal Shoham stands in the burned house of his laws in Kibbutz Be’ers. (Georges Schneider)
505 days in hell
Date 34. Day of his detention Evatar David and guy Gilboa-Dallal were brought to the Chamber. Hamas terrorists tortured them every day, hit them, denying foods as they eat before them. Longs were allowed only about 300 calories per day – Shoham weight fell with 174 kilograms at 110 kilograms when released – and speaking forbidden. “We couldn’t move from our beds or talk. We whispered everything,” he said.
Then some glow of hope came. Dana 50. his captivity, Tal received evidence of life from his wife – a letter that tells him about it and the children were hostages, but they were released. “I read it, the hands shake,” he said. “The most important thing happened – my family was safe. I shouldn’t have been a father and a husband who more often protect them. Now I could focus on my war, the one I knew I could fight, the one for survival.”
Evatar David is still held as hostages in Gaza Hamas terrorists. (Kind: Bring them home now)
Tunnel
Until 20. June, Tal, Guy and Evyatar moved an ambulance Hamas used For discrete transport of hostage, in the underground tunnel, where there was already one trapped, Omer Wenkert. There were four mattresses and holes in the toilet holder on the floor. The space is illuminated by a single, muted light. “It took me a few weeks to stop feeling as if the walls were closed, to adapt to the denying oxygen,” says Tal.
They gave them only 300 milliliters of water a day – a little more than 10 ounces. They could use it to drink or wash their hands. Rice was all they had to eat. It’s been months. They were beaten, supervised cameras, randomly deprived of food and sleep. The guards were the diggers of the Hamas tunnel – digging every day, even as the war above. “Hamas never stopped digging tunnels,” says Tal. “Not in one day.”
The conditions were so bad that he and Evyatar and Evyatar were developing severe infections. But there would be months before the doctor would come to see them. “My leg became blue, yellow and purple with internal bleeding,” he remembers. “We gave us all blood thinners, fearing trappings from prolonged real estate. They eventually realized that the problem was malnourished and given us vitamin supplements for seven days., But dramatically improved our condition.”
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Guy Gilboa-Dalal is still holding up in Gaza Hamas terrorists. (Kind: Bring them home now)
But abuse continued. A new guard came, even more violent than the previous ones. “He made some of us kneeling like dogs and beat us,” he says. “He would come to scream that we were dirty Jews, hit us, and then 10 minutes later smiled and brought us food.”
Then, what seemed like a miracle. Tal and Omer are appointed as part of Nastelection of the hostage edition In February. When he was driven out there after a more month underground, he still tied his eyes, he felt moisture on his face. “Is it rain?” He asked. “No,” his kidnappers answered, “‘it’s Rose.’ And I realized, my name, Tal, was ‘Rosa’ in Hebrew. I felt the morning dew on the skin. ”
There was a humiliation before he handed over the Red Cross and returned to Israel: a procession on stage in the heart of Rafah where he was forced to repeat Hamas propaganda. But he said he didn’t care, “he goes home. When he arrived in Israel, he was taken in the word base, where his wife, Ada and their two children, threads and Yahel were waiting. “It was a dream achieved, but he still feels like a dream,” says Tal. “It took a few days to fully realize that it was real. It was difficult to take. The emotions flooded me, as if hovering above all.”
And there were tragic news for absorbing. Eleven members of Tallova family were abducted or killed 7. October. Adi is father, Avšala Haran and two uncles, Lilah and Evyatar Kevnis. His mother-in-law, Shoshan Haran, now, together with two more relatives – Sharon Avigdori and her daughter, Noam Avigdori – who were later released in the first hostage contract. Two other births from the United States to celebrate his birthday, 59-year-old Judith Raanan, and her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie were also kidnapped from Kibbutza Nahal Oz.
Tal Shoham reunites with his family, some of whom were captured and 7. October. (IDF)
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And there was joy. During his detention, four new babies were born in the family. “Among us is Jewish hostages, there was cleanliness,” he said. “There were dignity. The terrorists brought into any horrors, inflicted cruelty, who could, imposed their inhumanity on us. But in our space we have preserved our inner cleanliness, and that was crucial that it was inappropriate.”
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2025-03-15 18:00:00
