Some mornings I wake up and forget, for a split second, that I’m free.
Then I remember the silence. The darkness. The wet concrete. And the two young men who were lying beside me, deep underground, who are still there.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
Their names are Evyatar David and Guy Dalal.
We were held together along with Omer Wenkert for eight and a half months in a Hamas tunnel—just 40 ft. long, less than 3 ft. wide. We slept on soaked mattresses, shared a single pita a day, and took turns whispering stories from home to keep ourselves sane.
We were strangers when we entered that darkness. But we became brothers.
It’s been more than 100 days since President Trump returned to the White House and the ceasefire deal that brought me, Omer, and dozens of others back was achieved. I haven’t been back above ground for that long—but even now, every breath of fresh air, every step in the sun, every quiet moment with my family feels like something sacred. Time feels different now. I carry it more carefully. Because I know how quickly time can run out—and how brutal each passing day is for those still living in captivity.
I spent 505 days as a hostage—held deep beneath the ground. We were watched constantly by a surveillance camera. A bomb was planted above us, rigged to detonate if Israeli forces came too close. We were told we would be blown up if anyone tried to save us. We were threatened, degraded, and at times tortured—not treated as people, but as objects to be controlled and broken.
Read More: The Families of Hostages on Life After Oct. 7
I am not a soldier. I was kidnapped on Oct. 7 from my in-laws’ home in Kibbutz Be’eri. My wife and children were with me. When terrorists couldn’t break open the door of our safe room, they came in through the window. They dragged me out, threw me into a trunk, and then paraded me through the streets of Gaza.
Before we were separated, I looked into my nine-year-old son’s terrified eyes and made a choice no parent should ever face. I told him the truth—that I didn’t know if we were going to die. I couldn’t lie to him in what might have been our final moments together.
For 50 agonizing days after that, I did not know if my family had survived. It was a rare flicker of hope when I learned in November they were about to be released.
Evyatar and Guy, both 22 years old, had been taken from the Nova music festival. Their friends were slaughtered around them. By the time we met in captivity, they were in terrible shape—starved, handcuffed, terrified. For weeks, they’d been fed almost nothing. Their hands were bound behind their backs, their ankles tied, their heads covered with plastic bags. But somehow, they still had spirit. During those last eight and a half months we spent together in the tunnel, they held on.
The men who held us didn’t see us as human. They tortured us for fun. Sometimes they would light pieces of paper on fire to suck up the small amount of oxygen from the tunnel. We would choke and have to lie on the floor to avoid suffocating.
We came up with daily rituals just to remember who we were. In a place built to break us, we held each other up. We became a unit. We became family.
When I walked out of that tunnel in February, I made a vow: I would speak for those who can’t.
President Trump, I was released in a deal your administration helped progress. Your decision to make the hostages a priority helped bring many people home. I am one of them. I’m here today because this issue was treated with the urgency it demands.
But we are not done. Fifty-nine hostages remain in Hamas captivity. And every day that passes makes it harder for them to survive.
Hamas didn’t release us out of goodwill. They responded to pressure—the kind that comes from international focus and relentless advocacy. I am asking you to do that again to bring every hostage home—both the living and the dead.
But a new plan to expand the military operation in Gaza is not the way forward. Every step deeper into this war feels like a step further away from Evyatar and Guy—and the chance to bring them home alive. We can’t let military momentum override moral clarity.
Evyatar and Guy are not statistics. They are sons. Friends. Music lovers. Gentle, funny, full of life. They deserve to walk in the sun again. They deserve a future.
I have seen the darkness. I have felt the weight of airless days, of hunger, of silence. But I also know what it means to breathe again.
President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu, you made that possible for me.
Please—bring them home too. Let them breathe again.