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Released hostage Eli Sharabi on Wednesday addressed the UN Security Council, describing how the Hamas terror group stole humanitarian aid and withheld it from Israeli captives and Gazan civilians, and detailing the torture he experienced at the hands of his captors.

Sharabi, who was released from captivity on February 8, told members of the security council that, “Hamas eats like kings while hostages starve,” at a special session on the issue of the hostages.

“I know you discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza very often,” Sharabi said at the UNSC, which held a meeting on the topic of aid entering Gaza on Tuesday, “but let me tell you as an eyewitness, I saw what happened to that aid: Hamas stole it.

“I saw Hamas terrorists carrying boxes with the UN and UNWRA emblems on them into the tunnels, dozens and dozens of boxes, paid for by your government,” Sharabi continued.

“They would eat many meals a day from the UN aid in front of us, and we never received any of it,” Sharabi said.

According to Sharabi, hostages received “one bath a month” with a bucket of cold water, were fed “a piece of pita, maybe a sip of tea,” at best, and endured brutal beatings and ridicule at the hands of their captors.

He described the psychological and physical torture he endured in captivity, including being held “50 meters underground” in “chains so tight they ripped my skin.”

Sharabi told the Security Council that just before his release, Hamas terrorists showed him a picture of his older brother, Yossi, laughing as they told him that he had been killed in captivity. “It was like they brought a massive hammer down on me,” said Sharabi.

Yossi’s body is still being held by Hamas in Gaza. An IDF probe said last year he was likely killed as the result of an airstrike, but could not rule out that he was murdered.

Sharabi also described to members how he was abandoned to his fate by international humanitarian organizations.

“Where was the UN? Where was the Red Cross? Where was the world?” Sharabi asked. “Every day [Hamas] told us: The world has abandoned you, no one is coming.”

Holding up a picture of his family members’ graves, Sharabi described the moment he discovered, after returning to Israel in February, that rather than waiting for him at home, his wife Lianne and their daughters, Noiya, 16, and Yahel 13, had been murdered by Palestinian terrorists on October 7, 2023, in their home’s safe room at Kibbutz Be’eri.

He recalled the day they were murdered, saying “As they dragged me out, I called out to my girls, I will be back. I had to believe that. But that was the last time I ever saw them. I didn’t know I should have said goodbye, forever.”

Speaking ahead of his address to the Security Council, Sharabi said he “was treated worse than an animal” while in captivity.

“No one in Gaza helped me. The civilians saw us suffering, and they cheered our kidnappers. They were definitely involved,” Sharabi said. “Where was the Red Cross? Where was the United Nations?”

“Now I will stand before the UNSC to say this: no more excuses, no more delays, no more moral blindness,” Sharabi added, just before entering the meeting.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has detained an Indian man studying at Washington’s Georgetown University and is seeking to deport him after deeming him a harm to US foreign policy, the student’s lawyer said on Wednesday.

The US Department of Homeland Security accused Badar Khan Suri of ties to the Palestinian terror group Hamas and said he had spread Hamas propaganda and antisemitism on social media, according to a statement it shared with Fox News.

The DHS statement to Fox News, which was reposted by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, did not cite evidence. It said Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that Suri’s activities “rendered him deportable.”

Suri — who is living in the US on a student visa and is married to American citizen Mapheze Saleh — has been detained in Alexandria, Louisiana, and is awaiting a court date in immigration court, his lawyer said. Federal agents arrested him outside his home in Rosslyn, Virginia, on Monday night.

Saleh is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, a former deputy foreign minister for Hamas and senior adviser to the Hamas leadership, a relationship highlighted last month by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis watchdog, a US-based pro-Israel group. Saleh’s Georgetown biography states she has written for Al Jazeera and Palestinian media outlets and that “she has worked with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Gaza, which provided her with a greater understanding of regional security, particularly in relation to Palestine.”

The ministry is controlled by Hamas, which the US designates as a terror organization.

Rocket sirens blared in Tel Aviv on Thursday afternoon after three long-range rockets were launched from the southern Gaza Strip at Israel, the first time rockets were launched from Gaza at central Israel in over five months.

One of the rockets was intercepted by air defenses, while the other two struck open areas, according to the military. No injuries were caused, though several pieces of shrapnel hit areas of Rishon Lezion. It was unclear whether they’d broken off of the Hamas rockets or the interceptors, but no major damage was caused.

The Hamas terror group claimed responsibility for the attack. Meanwhile, Israeli troops expanded a ground operation in the northern Gaza Strip, alongside dozens of airstrikes on terror targets, two days into the resumption of fighting in the enclave, after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire.

On Thursday evening the IDF said it had expanded its ground operations in the southern Gaza Strip. In the past few hours, troops had advanced into the Shaboura camp in Rafah, and destroyed “terror infrastructure,” the military said.

Early on Thursday the IDF launched ground operations along the coast of the far north of the Gaza Strip, close to Beit Lahiya. It came as part of the IDF’s activity aimed at expanding its buffer zone along the Gaza border.

Also on Thursday, Hamas officials were reportedly expected to arrive in Cairo for negotiations on returning to the truce, and an official from the terror group told Reuters that mediators had stepped up their efforts to halt the fighting but “no breakthrough has yet been made.”

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said in a statement Thursday that it had targeted Tel Aviv with a barrage of M90 rockets, in response to “the Zionist massacres against civilians.”

The rocket attack Thursday was Hamas’s first on central Israel since October 7, 2024, the one-year anniversary of the Hamas-led onslaught that sparked the ongoing war.

Following the rocket attack, the Israel Defense Forces issued an evacuation warning to Palestinians in the Bani Suheila area of southern Gaza.

In a post on X, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, Col. Avichay Adraee, published a map of the area that is to be evacuated, saying that it was a “final warning” before the IDF carries out strikes there.

“Terror organizations are once again launching their rockets from within civilian areas. We have warned this area many times,” he said. Adraee called on Gazan civilians to head west to recognized humanitarian shelters.

Hamas’s rocket attack came hours after an overnight missile attack by the Iran-backed Houthi group in Yemen set sirens blazing across central Israel. The missile was intercepted before it entered Israeli airspace, and no one was injured.

A ballistic missile launched at Israel by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen was successfully intercepted by air defenses, the military says.

There are no immediate reports of injuries or damage in the attack. The IDF says the missile was shot down before crossing the country’s borders.

Sirens had sounded in Jerusalem and numerous surrounding towns, West Bank settlements, the Dead Sea area, and some parts of central Israel.

It marks the third Houthi attack on Israel in the past two days, and the second since early this morning.

For the UK Jewish Orthodox Community
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Erev Shabbos

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