Tal Shoham, a former hostage who was held by Hamas for 505 days, wrote a personal account in Time magazine on Friday, detailing his abduction and captivity in the Gaza Strip.
In the essay, he called on US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to intensify efforts to secure the release of the remaining hostages.
Shoham was kidnapped on October 7, 2023, from his in-laws’ home in Kibbutz Be’eri. “I was kidnapped… My wife and children were with me,” he wrote. “When terrorists couldn’t break open the door of our safe room, they came in through the window.”
He described being dragged from the home, shoved into a car trunk, and paraded through Gaza.
For over eight months, Shoham was held underground in a Hamas tunnel with fellow hostages Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal, both 22, who were abducted from the Supernova music festival, and Omer Wenkert. The four shared a soaked mattress and subsisted on a single pita per day in a space Shoham said was just 12 meters long and less than a meter wide.
Shoham said the men developed a close bond during captivity. “We were strangers when we entered that darkness. But we became brothers,” he wrote. The hostages were kept under constant surveillance, with a bomb placed overhead “rigged to detonate if Israeli forces came too close.”
He recalled the poor physical condition of his fellow hostages: “They’d been fed almost nothing. Their hands were bound behind their backs, their ankles tied, their heads covered with plastic bags.” Despite this, he wrote, “somehow, they still had spirit.”
To maintain their mental strength, the group developed routines. “In a place built to break us, we held each other up. We became a unit. We became family.”
Shoham says hostages in Gaza can only be freed through diplomacy, not escalation
Shoham was released in February as part of a US-brokered ceasefire deal. “It’s been more than 100 days since President Trump returned to the White House and the ceasefire deal that brought me, Omer, and dozens of others back was achieved,” he wrote. “Every breath of fresh air, every step in the sun, every quiet moment with my family feels like something sacred.”
He expressed gratitude to Trump and Netanyahu: “Your decision to make the hostages a priority helped bring many people home. I am one of them.”
Shoham emphasized that more must be done. “Fifty-nine hostages remain in Hamas captivity. And every day that passes makes it harder for them to survive.” He argued that military escalation will not bring the hostages home.
“A new plan to expand the military operation in Gaza is not the way forward,” he wrote. “Every step deeper into this war feels like a step further away from Evyatar and Guy – and the chance to bring them home alive.”
He concluded his essay with a direct appeal: “President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu, you made that possible for me. Please – bring them home too. Let them breathe again.”