Tal Shoham says he has difficulty seeing peace with Gaza or the Palestinian Arabs.
He and his wife, Adi, and their two children were grabbed by Hamas gunmen during the bloodiest single day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Hamas terrorists overwhelmed border defences with a surprise assault, and dragged him and 250 other hostages back into Gaza in violence that shattered Israel’s image as an invincible military power.
Shoham can see little prospect of long-term peace even after Israel mounted devastating attacks on Iran’s leadership and its regional allies, Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, and armed groups in Syria.
During his ordeal, Shoham concluded that anti-Israeli feelings run so deep that there is no chance for coexistence.
“After I saw the magnitude of hatred that they grew up upon and they are raising their children upon, it’s really clear that at least in our generation it won’t be possible,” he said.
Shoham spent the first eight months of his captivity above ground. But in June last year, he and fellow hostages Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Evyatar David were taken into the tunnels below ground in disguise.
Their guards escorted them for about 15 minutes before putting blindfolds on them and taking them into a tunnel, eventually bringing them to a tiny dark chamber where another hostage, Omer Wenkert, was already being held.
“We were going to stay in the tunnel 20 or 30 meters underground, in this tomb, for eternity,” he said, recalling his feelings at the prospect. Their cell was a narrow stretch of tunnel with concrete walls, a sandy floor, an iron door blocking the entrance, four mattresses on the ground, and a hole to use as a toilet. The air was thick, and they struggled to breathe.
“We were treated like animals. I mean, even animals won’t be kept in such inhumane conditions, but this is the way they treated us,” he said.
Their guards sometimes beat them. At other times, they tormented them by telling the four men that they had to choose which of them would be imminently shot.
Gilboa-Dalal and David remain hostages in Gaza. Images Hamas released of David in August, emaciated in his underground cell, caused widespread shock in Israel and abroad.
“And I’m really afraid for their lives. You know, there are 20 living hostages still in Gaza in the hands of those beasts,” Shoham said.
Tal Shoham was the first to be taken hostage by the terrorists.
He was dragged through the window of a safe room, led through the Kibbutz, and thrown into the trunk of a car that took him to Hamas-run Gaza.
It was only after more than a month in captivity that he learned his wife and children had survived the attack but were also kidnapped, along with his mother-in-law, his wife’s aunt, and her daughter. His father-in-law, Avshalom, was murdered.
Shoham’s wife and children were released in the first deal with Hamas in late 2023. He was freed in the second and last deal in February 2025.
This is the character of a "Palestine" the West's leaders crave for.
Barry Shawis at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.