• Education
    • Higher Education
    • Scholarships & Grants
    • Online Learning
    • School Reforms
    • Research & Innovation
  • Lifestyle
    • Travel
    • Food & Drink
    • Fashion & Beauty
    • Home & Living
    • Relationships & Family
  • Technology & Startups
    • Software & Apps
    • Startup Success Stories
    • Startups & Innovations
    • Tech Regulations
    • Venture Capital
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cybersecurity
    • Emerging Technologies
    • Gadgets & Devices
    • Industry Analysis
  • About us
  • Contact
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy & Policy
Today Headline
  • Home
  • World News
    • Us & Canada
    • Europe
    • Asia
    • Africa
    • Middle East
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • Political Parties
    • Government Policies
    • International Relations
    • Legislative News
  • Business & Finance
    • Market Trends
    • Stock Market
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Corporate News
    • Economic Policies
  • Science & Environment
    • Space Exploration
    • Climate Change
    • Wildlife & Conservation
    • Environmental Policies
    • Medical Research
  • Health
    • Public Health
    • Mental Health
    • Medical Breakthroughs
    • Fitness & Nutrition
    • Pandemic Updates
  • Sports
    • Football
    • Basketball
    • Tennis
    • Olympics
    • Motorsport
  • Entertainment
    • Movies
    • Music
    • TV & Streaming
    • Celebrity News
    • Awards & Festivals
  • Crime & Justice
    • Court Cases
    • Cybercrime
    • Policing
    • Criminal Investigations
    • Legal Reforms
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • World News
    • Us & Canada
    • Europe
    • Asia
    • Africa
    • Middle East
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • Political Parties
    • Government Policies
    • International Relations
    • Legislative News
  • Business & Finance
    • Market Trends
    • Stock Market
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Corporate News
    • Economic Policies
  • Science & Environment
    • Space Exploration
    • Climate Change
    • Wildlife & Conservation
    • Environmental Policies
    • Medical Research
  • Health
    • Public Health
    • Mental Health
    • Medical Breakthroughs
    • Fitness & Nutrition
    • Pandemic Updates
  • Sports
    • Football
    • Basketball
    • Tennis
    • Olympics
    • Motorsport
  • Entertainment
    • Movies
    • Music
    • TV & Streaming
    • Celebrity News
    • Awards & Festivals
  • Crime & Justice
    • Court Cases
    • Cybercrime
    • Policing
    • Criminal Investigations
    • Legal Reforms
No Result
View All Result
Today Headline
No Result
View All Result
Home World News Middle East

14 months after hostage son was freed, father says family still held captive by trauma

January 19, 2025
in Middle East
Reading Time: 6 mins read
A A
0
14 months after hostage son was freed, father says family still held captive by trauma
7
SHARES
16
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


As families of hostages anxiously follow the unfolding hostage deal, Yoav Engel, father of former captive Ofir Engel, sent a message of support to the families whose loved ones are not on the initial list of 33 hostages being freed in the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal. An additional 64 are believed to be held, not all of them alive.

“We are with you until the return of the very last hostage,” said Engel. “There are no living hostages or dead hostages, there are just hostages. And there are still 97 hostages in Gaza.”

The Hamas terror organization was slated to release three female hostages, Romi Leshem Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari, from Gaza on Sunday afternoon.

Four more hostages will be returned to Israel on the seventh day of the ceasefire, and three hostages will be returned every week for four weeks. Finally, 14 hostages will be returned in the sixth and final week of phase one.

Engel spoke last week with The Times of Israel, reflecting on the difficulties of moving forward from his child’s kidnapping to Gaza by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023.

Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories

By signing up, you agree to the terms

“My wife and I turn to each other — it’s so crazy to think we went through this,” said Engel. “When I talk about it, it’s like I’m talking about someone else, it’s like a film. Did this really happen to us?”

Ofir Engel, center, as he was released home from Gaza captivity on November 29, 2023 with his parents Yoav, left, and Sharon Engel (Courtesy)

The 54 days that Ofir, now 18, spent in captivity threw Engel, his wife Sharon, and Ofir’s two younger sisters into a maelstrom of uncertainty that resonates to this day.

Everything reminds them of he fear, anguish and anxiety of those two months.

Engel knows that he and his family are relatively fortunate. Ofir returned to them healthy and whole, and in a sense, the terrifying chapter was closed.

Except that it wasn’t.

“This will be with us for a long time,” said Engel, who spends part of each week fighting for government funding to pay for his family’s therapy, an ordeal now familiar to many survivors of the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught.

Some 1,200 people were slaughtered in southern Israel that day, and 251 were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.

Ofir, then 17, was visiting his girlfriend, Yuval Sharabi, on October 7, 2023, at her family’s home in Kibbutz Be’eri. As Hamas terrorists invaded the kibbutz killing 101 residents, burning homes and committing atrocities, Ofir was taken hostage with Yuval’s father Yossi Sharabi and a neighbor’s teenage son.

Ofir and the other teenager were freed on November 29. Yossi Sharabi, 53, remained in captivity and was then killed, possibly by an IDF strike in Gaza, on January 16, 2024.

“[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu said to me twice that Yossi was alive, that they wouldn’t blow up any place that had living hostages, even if they weren’t sure there was anyone nearby,” said Ofir Engel. “But 29 hostages have been killed that way.”

Now the Engels mourn with the Sharabis while hoping that Yossi Sharabi’s brother, hostage Eli Sharabi, will come home. Eli’s wife and two daughters were killed at their home in Be’eri on October 7.

Eli Sharabi, now 52, is on the list of 33 hostages to be freed in the first phase of the deal.

“I can try and understand how Nira [Sharabi] is doing,” said Engel, referring to Yossi Sharabi’s wife, “yet I can’t even describe how I am. There are no words in Hebrew that describe this. The words don’t exist in our language.”

Former hostage Ofir Engel, far right, with his girlfriend Yuval Sharabi’s mother, Nira Sharabi, second from left, and the rest of the family in the ruins of their Kibbutz Be’eri home, in January 2024 (Courtesy)

Engel and his father, Yosef “Jucha” Engel, once an aide to Shimon Peres, are a regular presence at hostage gatherings and rallies, often standing with Sharon Sharabi, the brother of Eli and Yossi Sharabi, holding pictures of his two brothers.

While Engel is back at work as head of the athletics department at Jerusalem’s Shalva organization, working with people with disabilities, he still participates regularly in hostage family circles.

He speaks at various hostage forums and is at the weekly demonstrations in front of the Knesset on Mondays in the struggle to bring the hostages home.

As Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of murdered hostage Hersh Golderg-Polin recently remarked, families like theirs are “hostage adjacent.”

It isn’t the first time that Engel and his family have experienced a catastrophic event related to the nation’s security. In 1996, Engel’s younger brother, Yair Engel, died during his naval commando training.

It has now been 28 years since Yair died, and Ofir’s kidnapping induces a different kind of trauma, said Engel.

Members of Ofir Engel’s family rally for his safety while he was still held hostage from October 7 to November 30, 2023. (Courtesy)

“When my brother was killed, they knocked on the door and everything that we knew just collapsed, but we also knew what happened next, we buried him and sat shiva [ritual mourning], we went through the motions,” said Engel, who lives with his family and the extended Engel family on Kibbutz Ramat Rachel within the Jerusalem municipality.

When Ofir was taken hostage, it was five days until it became certain that he was a hostage, and 35 days until they had any signs of life from him.

“Every moment we were waiting, wondering if they would find his body but holding onto hope and belief,” said Engel. “In my head, I believed he was alive rather than think otherwise but you don’t know what to do. There’s no rulebook.”

Engel didn’t work during those months.

He’s now back at work but often feels like he’s at loose ends, lacking focus. He speaks about this frequently in meetings with the National Insurance Institute, which grants funds for ongoing therapies, and in Knesset committee meetings, where he discusses the need to help the victims and their extended families.

“They don’t see us as victims because we weren’t there,” said Engel. “This affects everybody, from the victim to the victim’s family, to the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.”

Yoav Engel, top, second from right, in the Knesset with other hostage families as hostage mother Einav Zangauker, middle, bottom row, reacts during a Constitution, Law and Justice Committee meeting at the Knesset on December 16, 2024. (Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

And yet for the most part, former hostage Ofir is doing well, even though aspects of his future are still uncertain.

He is currently participating in a pre-army service year in the Golan Heights, as is his girlfriend Yuval, although the two are in different programs, said Engel.

Engel thinks back to November 29, 2023, when his son returned home, which also happened to be the senior Engel’s birthday.

“It was the birthday gift to end all birthdays,” said Engel.

On that first day, as they sat in a courtyard of Schneider Hospital, Ofir asked why yellow ribbons were tied to all the branches of a nearby tree.

“He had no idea they were for the hostages,” said Engel.

The next day, Engel took his son to the Hostages Forum offices in Tel Aviv. On the way there, Ofir saw an enormous image of himself magnified on the Azrieli Mall electronic billboard.

“He couldn’t believe it,” said Engel.

The Engel and Sharabi families on a trip to Disney World after Ofir Engel, bottom second left, was released home from Gaza captivity on November 29, 2023 (Courtesy)

Ofir Engel recently did a press tour to promote “Survived to Tell,” a virtual reality experience from the Israel-is organization that includes his account of his ordeal, filmed in the ruins of his girlfriend’s Kibbutz Be’eri home.

“Sometimes he feels he’s telling the story of someone else,” said his father, who keeps a set of the VR goggles in his Jerusalem living room. “He sees his picture on TV and says, ‘There I am.’ It’s very strange for him.”

All these months later, the Engels still feel connected to it all. They’re waiting anxiously for the hostage deal, with hopes that Yuval’s uncle, Eli Sharabi, is still alive and will return home.

“Let’s see if he’s still alive, but then, how will he keep going?” said Engel. “His entire family was killed. Your stomach clenches just thinking about it. But let’s first see that he’s alive.”

!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘272776440645465’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);

Previous Post

‘Very worried’ – Saliba injury adds to Arsenal woes

Next Post

How TikTok grew from a fun app for teens into a potential national security threat – National

Related Posts

Israeli official says Iran strikes killed over 30 security chiefs, 11 nuclear scientists

Israeli official says Iran strikes killed over 30 security chiefs, 11 nuclear scientists

June 28, 2025
6
Iranian FM tells Trump to change his 'disrespectful' tone toward Khamenei

Iranian FM tells Trump to change his ‘disrespectful’ tone toward Khamenei

June 28, 2025
6
Next Post
How TikTok grew from a fun app for teens into a potential national security threat - National

How TikTok grew from a fun app for teens into a potential national security threat - National

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Family calls for change after B.C. nurse dies by suicide after attacks on the job

Family calls for change after B.C. nurse dies by suicide after attacks on the job

April 2, 2025
Pioneering 3D printing project shares successes

Product reduces TPH levels to non-hazardous status

November 27, 2024

Police ID man who died after Corso Italia fight

December 23, 2024

Hospital Mergers Fail to Deliver Better Care or Lower Costs, Study Finds todayheadline

December 31, 2024
Harris tells supporters 'never give up' and urges peaceful transfer of power

Harris tells supporters ‘never give up’ and urges peaceful transfer of power

0
Des Moines Man Accused Of Shooting Ex-Girlfriend's Mother

Des Moines Man Accused Of Shooting Ex-Girlfriend’s Mother

0

Trump ‘looks forward’ to White House meeting with Biden

0
Catholic voters were critical to Donald Trump’s blowout victory: ‘Harris snubbed us’

Catholic voters were critical to Donald Trump’s blowout victory: ‘Harris snubbed us’

0
NFL coach added to lawsuit about hacking allegations against former assistant

NFL coach added to lawsuit about hacking allegations against former assistant

June 28, 2025

Mahmoud Khalil details detainment during son’s birth: It ‘got me in the heart’

June 28, 2025
Japan aims to complete Yonaguni evacuation shelter in 2028

Japan aims to complete Yonaguni evacuation shelter in 2028

June 28, 2025
Trump says Gaza ceasefire possible ‘within the next week’, gives no details

Trump says Gaza ceasefire possible ‘within the next week’, gives no details

June 28, 2025

Recent News

NFL coach added to lawsuit about hacking allegations against former assistant

NFL coach added to lawsuit about hacking allegations against former assistant

June 28, 2025
5

Mahmoud Khalil details detainment during son’s birth: It ‘got me in the heart’

June 28, 2025
5
Japan aims to complete Yonaguni evacuation shelter in 2028

Japan aims to complete Yonaguni evacuation shelter in 2028

June 28, 2025
5
Trump says Gaza ceasefire possible ‘within the next week’, gives no details

Trump says Gaza ceasefire possible ‘within the next week’, gives no details

June 28, 2025
6

TodayHeadline is a dynamic news website dedicated to delivering up-to-date and comprehensive news coverage from around the globe.

Follow Us

Browse by Category

  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Basketball
  • Business & Finance
  • Climate Change
  • Crime & Justice
  • Cybersecurity
  • Economic Policies
  • Elections
  • Entertainment
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Environmental Policies
  • Europe
  • Football
  • Gadgets & Devices
  • Health
  • Medical Research
  • Mental Health
  • Middle East
  • Motorsport
  • Olympics
  • Politics
  • Public Health
  • Relationships & Family
  • Science & Environment
  • Software & Apps
  • Space Exploration
  • Sports
  • Stock Market
  • Technology & Startups
  • Tennis
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Us & Canada
  • Wildlife & Conservation
  • World News

Recent News

NFL coach added to lawsuit about hacking allegations against former assistant

NFL coach added to lawsuit about hacking allegations against former assistant

June 28, 2025

Mahmoud Khalil details detainment during son’s birth: It ‘got me in the heart’

June 28, 2025
  • Education
  • Lifestyle
  • Technology & Startups
  • About us
  • Contact
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy & Policy

© 2024 Todayheadline.co

Welcome Back!

OR

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Business & Finance
  • Corporate News
  • Economic Policies
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Market Trends
  • Crime & Justice
  • Court Cases
  • Criminal Investigations
  • Cybercrime
  • Legal Reforms
  • Policing
  • Education
  • Higher Education
  • Online Learning
  • Entertainment
  • Awards & Festivals
  • Celebrity News
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Health
  • Fitness & Nutrition
  • Medical Breakthroughs
  • Mental Health
  • Pandemic Updates
  • Lifestyle
  • Fashion & Beauty
  • Food & Drink
  • Home & Living
  • Politics
  • Elections
  • Government Policies
  • International Relations
  • Legislative News
  • Political Parties
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • Middle East
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Cybersecurity
  • Emerging Technologies
  • Gadgets & Devices
  • Industry Analysis
  • Basketball
  • Football
  • Motorsport
  • Olympics
  • Climate Change
  • Environmental Policies
  • Medical Research
  • Science & Environment
  • Space Exploration
  • Wildlife & Conservation
  • Sports
  • Tennis
  • Technology & Startups
  • Software & Apps
  • Startup Success Stories
  • Startups & Innovations
  • Tech Regulations
  • Venture Capital
  • Uncategorized
  • World News
  • Us & Canada
  • Public Health
  • Relationships & Family
  • Travel
  • Research & Innovation
  • Scholarships & Grants
  • School Reforms
  • Stock Market
  • TV & Streaming
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy & Policy
  • About us
  • Contact

© 2024 Todayheadline.co