Man’s release bittersweet for British family still mourning 4 relatives lost

LONDON — As Gillian Brisley and her husband, Pete, watched their son-in-law’s release from captivity on Saturday morning, she clutched a teddy bear to her chest.

It was a reminder of everything the family has suffered since Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing their daughter, Lianne Sharabi, and teenage granddaughters, Noiya and Yahel, while taking son-in-law Eli Sharabi hostage. Eli’s brother Yossi was also killed.

The stuffed toy, which once belonged to Lianne, was a tangible link between the Brisleys and events in the Middle East as they watched the hostage handover unfold on TV at their home in South Wales.

“While Gill was crying, she was holding on to the teddy bear, which was Lianne’s from the age of about 10 years old and which we were lucky enough to find on Kibbutz Be’eri when we went to the house,” Pete Brisley said. “When we went to the house, it was filthy, bullet holes everywhere. So we tidied up the house, tidied up the garden, so if Eli wanted to come home to it, then it looks reasonable because it was an absolute shambles.”

Even that simple cleanup was an act of faith because the family had received no word on Sharabi at all since the terrorists took him back to Gaza with more than 200 other hostages.

Out of nowhere, the Brisleys were told Friday that Sharabi, 52, was to be one of three hostages released the next day. So they got up early Saturday morning to see their son-in-law walk free. The moment was bittersweet. They were thrilled that he was finally free but horrified by the pale, emaciated figure they saw on TV. This wasn’t the swarthy, robust man they last saw 18 months ago. The spark that always glinted in his eyes was gone.

“He looks as though he’s been to Belsen,” Pete Brisley said, referring to the World War II concentration camp.

When asked how she felt, Gillian Brisley said she was relieved he was free. But there was more to say.

“The emotion of seeing him also then brought the grief of losing our girls right up to our throats,” she said. “We just sat here and we cried. We cried for our loss. We cried with relief that Eli was on his way home. We cried for Yossi. Just, you know, mixed emotions.”

Then there’s the continuing concern for Sharabi.

Sharabi was told only after his return that his wife and two daughters were killed on Oct. 7, according to reports in Israeli media. The family had hoped that he was told beforehand so that he wouldn’t have to process that grief after surviving 490 days in captivity, said Stephen Brisley, Lianne’s brother.