EXCLUSIVE: Of their first joint UK interview since being reunited, Eliya Cohen and fiancée Ziv Abud reveal their highly effective story of hope, survival and love
When Eliya Cohen was launched by Hamas terrorists following 505 days in captivity, he had misplaced 28 kilos and will now not stroll. He wanted nutritional vitamins, surgical procedure to take away bullets lodged in his leg, and intensive care. Eliya was considered one of 44 hostages kidnapped after the October 7 Nova Music Pageant bloodbath, the place 48 of his mates had been killed. In an Israeli hospital, Ziv Abud, the lady who by no means stopped believing he was alive, climbed into his mattress and held him as Eliya started the sluggish work of restoration. For 505 days, he was sure she had been murdered. For 505 days, Ziv didn’t know if he was nonetheless alive.
As Eliya was dragged away to the terrorists’ truck, he had seen the gunmen firing into the concrete bunker the place they’d been hiding. However Ziv had survived, buried beneath the our bodies of the useless for 3 hours till the taking pictures stopped.As soon as rescued, Ziv gave up her job to marketing campaign for his launch however she by no means gave up hope, even whereas Eliya spent that agonising 12 months and a half believing she was useless. The final phrases Ziv heard from him had been spoken in that concrete bunker referred to as a ‘migunit’ – designed for ten folks however filled with 29 terrified festival-goers. “I am injured within the leg,” he instructed her after hand-grenades had been thrown inside and he was seized. The very last thing Eliya noticed from the truck into which he was bundled was a gunman returning to the concrete air raid shelters – designed to guard the residents from rocket hearth from Gaza – along with his weapon raised, decided to make sure nobody survived.
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Ziv Abud and Eliya Cohen, in 2024, had been reunited after Eliya spent 505 days in Hamas captivity (Picture: Provided)
The machine gun hearth began, and as our bodies started to fall, Ziv felt the burden of them urgent her into the filthy flooring. For 3 hours, buried beneath the useless, she believed she had died too. The final time I spoke to Ziv, in September 2024, shortly earlier than the primary anniversary of the bloodbath, she described the second earlier that 12 months when the Hostages and Lacking Households Discussion board launched two minutes of recent video footage displaying Eliya being kidnapped from what’s now recognized internationally because the “demise shelter”.
“He was terrified within the truck on the way in which to Gaza,” she instructed me, her voice regular however strained. “He was injured. He was scared. His palms are on his face. That is the final picture I’ve of him.” That picture – bloodied, curled within the foetal place, palms masking his face as militants waved machine weapons above him – shattered a fragile consolation she had carried from an earlier video that had proven him being led to the truck. He had appeared, she thought, “somewhat bit okay”. However this second footage revealed the reality: he was terrified and damage.
At this time, they’re collectively in London to speak about their unimaginable story of hope, survival, and love – showing on the Nova Exhibition, a commemoration to the victims, survivors and hostages taken by Hamas, working till July 5 in London as a part of a world tour.
“The very last thing I noticed earlier than I used to be taken from the shelter was the gunman return with the machine gun to verify everybody had died,” Eliya says quietly. “I used to be certain she had died. I used to be actually certain that I misplaced her.” He grieved for Ziv and after his first few months in captivity, decided. “I mentioned to myself, you must be robust. I misplaced so many mates in addition to Ziv. I instructed myself, I’ve a household and extra mates in my life, and I’ve to be robust for them. I’m decided I’ll get married, and every part goes to be okay. I am an idealist.”
When Eliya crossed the border after his launch, a psychiatrist working for the military instructed him his household can be ready at one of many bases close to Gaza. Then she added: “And Ziv will probably be ready for you.”
The Nova music competition floor after the October 7 onslaught by Hamas militants (Picture: MANUEL DE ALMEIDA/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
“I began to cry and to scream,” he recollects. “’She’s alive, she’s alive.’ It took me time to deal with the scenario.” Inside half an hour, they had been reunited. “After I noticed her, I discovered what she’d achieved for me. It was like a film, all that we went by way of, and now she’s alive. It is loopy. I checked out her and mentioned, it was price it to outlive all this and to construct an exquisite life with my fiancée. It was an entire victory.” For Ziv, the second was equally overwhelming however tinged with uncertainty. “He did not know I used to be alive. We had such completely different experiences. So, when he got here out, he simply anticipated to see his household. I requested myself, for a second, would he truly wish to see me? As a result of eighteen months had handed and I simply knew that he did not assume I had survived.”
After they embraced, crying and kissing, she says merely: “It was a really particular second.” Eliya was hospitalised for 2 weeks. However bodily therapeutic was solely the start of his restoration. “It is not straightforward to return again after a 12 months and a half,” Ziv says. “There are a variety of issues due to what we’ve got been by way of. We work on it lots. We actually, actually knew that we have a present from God, that we had the chance to return again collectively. We work exhausting on our relationship simply to make it work and to like one another.
Eliya Cohen proposes to his long-term girlfriend Ziv Abud on October 23, 2025 (Picture: -)
“Everybody thinks it is fairy tales,” she provides, “however I’ve my issues with PTSD, and he has his issues additionally with PTSD. There are nights with out sleeping, panic assaults, a variety of issues we’re each going by way of, however we’ve got one another now. For the 12 months he was in captivity, I simply had myself in an empty mattress, however now I’ve him to hug.”
Ziv started remedy very early on: “I knew when Eliya was going to be launched, he wants somebody to hug him. Somebody who can deal with what occurred to him. That is why I did it.” For Eliya, therapeutic was extra sophisticated. For eight months after his launch, he couldn’t permit himself to concentrate on restoration. “My mates had been nonetheless in captivity,” he explains. “I felt so responsible to do one thing for myself whereas I knew the situations by which the opposite hostages had been dwelling. Now it’s time to settle for remedy myself as a result of they’ve been launched additionally. Simply now, I’m determining what number of issues I’ve.”
As soon as the opposite hostages had been freed, Eliya felt able to do one thing he had been planning since his launch. He instructed Ziv they had been going to satisfy Steve Whitcoff, the American businessman who had been instrumental in hostage negotiations. He instructed her to decorate properly. After they arrived on the lodge, their mates had been ready. “I used to be so shocked,” Ziv says. “I observed all my mates within the lodge sporting white. It was loopy.”
Ziv and Eliya collectively in London to speak about their unimaginable story of hope, survival and love (Picture: Tim Merry)
Throughout Eliya’s captivity, Ziv had worn a marriage gown lined in photos of hostages as she walked by way of Tel Aviv, a haunting protest on the Israeli equal of Halloween. She had promised herself that the following marriage ceremony gown she wore can be white. When Eliya proposed that day in entrance of their family and friends, that promise was redeemed.
Again in London, Ziv and Eliya talk about what sustained them by way of their separate ordeals. For Ziv, it was religion. “I by no means gave up hope,” she says. “I consider in God with an enormous religion. I did not wish to see one thing else aside from that Eliya is alive and goes to return again house alive.” For Eliya, survival required a distinct technique. “In captivity they took from me every part. All my rights. I could not transfer. I could not eat. However the one factor they could not take from me was find out how to take care of it. If I take care of it with a smile, I win. If I smile after they beat me, I win.”
For greater than 490 days, he was chained to different hostages. They got one crust of bread a day to share. They weren’t allowed to bathe. They may use the restroom as soon as each 24 hours. Each two to a few weeks, there was violence. “They stored us alive simply as a lot as they wanted to, in order that they may do negotiation, however nothing extra,” he says. “I had no muscle left. It took me two weeks to grasp find out how to stroll once more.” All through all of it, the captors laughed on the hostages’ our bodies. After I name this humiliation, Ziv corrects me. “It was sexual abuse,” she insists.
Now, they’re constructing a life collectively. On August 19, they are going to marry in Israel – in the identical place the place Hamas needed to homicide them. “We’ll get married there,” Ziv says. “That is our victory, and we’re going to construct an exquisite huge household.”
- The Nova Music Pageant Exhibition (06:29am: The Second Music Stood Nonetheless) runs till July 5 at The Stage in London. Advisable for youngsters age 12+, anybody below 16 must be accompanied by an grownup. For extra data, go to novaexhibition.com/london-exhibition
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