Israeli hostage only discovered fiancee had survived 7 October after his release | Israel

An Israeli hostage only discovered his fiancee had survived the 7 October attacks after his release on Saturday, Israeli media has reported.

Eliya Cohen had spent more than 500 days in captivity fearing his bride-to-be, Ziv Abud, was dead. The last time they had seen each other, they were hiding in a shelter with relatives and friends after attending the Nova festival.

An emotive video taken by the Israeli Defense Forces shows them embracing and bursting into tears when they first see each other.

Abud, who can barely speak through her tears, tells Cohen he is her love, her life and her darling. Then they gaze into each other’s eyes and, in between kisses, Cohen asks her how she is.

While campaigning for Cohen’s release last year, Abud told the Guardian: “Hamas threw nine grenades into our shelter and I heard Eliya screaming and he told me that he was hurt and after two minutes I felt his hands slipping away as they pulled him away.”

She was buried under bodies for six hours. When she was rescued, she found that Cohen was missing and that her nephew and his partner had been shot dead next to her in the shelter, which is now referred to as the “death bunker” in Israel.

Of the 27 who hid there, 16 were killed by Hamas, four were taken hostage and the rest were rescued by Israeli soldiers.

When she discovered that before his abduction, Cohen had bought an engagement ring and had been planning to propose to her, Abud started to call herself his fiancee.

In January 2024, she told the Guardian: “I don’t feel alive now. I’m just waiting. Every day I’m just waiting for him, for all of the kidnapped. We can’t just go on when they’re not home,” she said.

She wrote on Instagram: “I often think about the moment you return. How will you react when you find out that I’m alive?” Some of their friends died on 7 October and she worried about how she would tell him what happened. “What will I tell you? How will I tell you about Amit, Yonatan, and [the] hundreds of our friends who are no longer alive?”

Cohen was reportedly held chained in a tunnel for most of his captivity together with Or Levy and El Sharabi, who has been released, and Alon Ohel, who has not.

So far, 25 Israeli captives have been released in a fragile ceasefire deal that began last month. In total, 33 Israelis – including the remains of eight who have died or been killed in captivity – are expected to be handed over in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.