Former hostage Eli Sharabi warned against the violent discourse of elected officials targeting leading legal figures, and said that politicians would be responsible if a member of the public were to “take the law into their own hands.”
“I think we have a leadership that uses violent discourse,” Sharabi said in the Channel 12 interview broadcast Saturday, clarifying that was referring to elected officials.
“I think they forget for a moment that people are looking to them, listening to them, and that their words can be very, very problematic – toward the attorney general, the president of the Supreme Court,” he said.
“These are things that have not been said before, these are terrible things,” he said, referring to recent attacks on legal officials, often referred to as gatekeepers of democracy.
Last week, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed to “trample” Supreme Court President Isaac Amit and called him a “violent megalomaniac.” Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara is a frequent target of members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline government, which has been trying unsuccessfully for months to fire her.
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Sharabi, who has been speaking about his experiences around the world, said that he warns foreign leaders that they would be responsible if there are attacks on Jews in their countries, and that he issues the same warning to Israeli lawmakers.
This composite image shows Supreme Court President Isaac Amit (L) and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara (Yonatan Sindel and Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)
“I also say the same to our elected officials,” he said. “If someone takes the law into their own hands as a result of their words, then they have a very, very big responsibility and they need to be careful.”
The former hostage specifically referred to far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
“He needs to be careful with his language. There are people who voted for him, who believe in him, who are influenced by his words, and it is very, very important to be careful,” Sharabi said.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir attends a National Security Committee meeting at the Knesset on December 31, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
A number of former hostages have said that Ben Gvir’s boasting of his efforts to significantly deteriorate the conditions of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails led Hamas to worsen the treatment of Israeli abductees in Gaza.
Sharabi, who weighed just 44 kilograms (97 pounds) when he was freed, described last February the abuse and starvation that worsened in Gaza as a result of statements by politicians.
Has not returned to the community
The ex-hostage said that he had not fully integrated back into the Kibbutz Be’eri community since he was released from Gaza last February, after 491 days of captivity.
Hamas-led terrorists murdered his wife Lianne and their daughters Noiya, 16, and Yahel, 13, during their October 7 onslaught. It was only upon Sharabi’s release that he learned his family had been killed in their Kibbutz Be’eri home.
Eli’s brother Yossi, was also kidnapped, and was killed in Gaza.
Eli Sharabi was taken captive on October 7, 2023 by Hamas terrorists while his wife Lianne and their two daughters, Noiya and Yahel, were killed. (Courtesy)
“Since my release, I have not really returned to take part in the community, I felt that I was incapable,” Sharabi said.
Sharabi said he has recently moved to Hod Hasharon in central Israel.
“I recently started going to funerals and a little bit into Be’eri, but I have not even entered my own house yet,” he said. “My house happens to be one of the houses that can be preserved, that did not burn down. I really have no opinion on whether it should be preserved.”
A Hamas terrorist in a body bag is seen in Kibbutz Be’eri, Oct. 11, 2023. (AP/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Last month, Kibbutz Be’eri announced that all homes damaged in the two worst-hit neighborhoods of Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza border will be demolished, save for a single house that will remain as a memorial to the destruction and bloodshed of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. Days after the vote, Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu’s office indicated he was weighing designating some homes in the kibbutz as national heritage sites.
On October 7, 2023, 101 civilians and 31 security personnel were killed in Be’eri — a community of around 1,000 residents — and a further 30 residents and two additional civilians were taken hostage from there by the Hamas terrorists. Many dozens of homes in the community were damaged and destroyed amid the fighting.
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