By Lesedi Sibiya-Diplomatic Insider
For 505 days, Tal Shoham, has been held in captivity by the organisation Hamas. He was held in bondage in zip ties as he was thrown into the trunk of a car and was taken to Gaza.
On Sunday, the Shoham family was welcomed by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and The Base, in order to tell the story of their captivity and what they had to endure during their time in captivity. Tal Shahom was reunited with his family as he was released on the 22nd of Feb 2025.
The Chargee D’affaires, Adi Hazanov Cohen, addressed everyone in attendance before the main address began as she called out human rights organizations for being silent on the October 7 attacks and the families experiencing grief over family members who are held hostage by Hamas.
“International organizations that proudly waved the banner of human rights have remained deafly silent in the face of sexual violence on October 7. Children’s rights organizations did not cry out, not even when 39 children were abducted from their beds. Two of them are with us today.”
Cohen also expressed her sorrow to the Shoham family for the loss of their loved ones during the October 7 attack.
“Talvadi I want to express my deepest sorrow for the tremendous loss of so many of your loved ones on the 7th of October and for the unbreakable and unbearable trauma that you endured that day when we as a country failed in our most sacred duty which is to protect you.”
The proceedings continued with Shoham and his wife Adi, who took to stage to give the main address on their account of the trauma they endured from the October 7 attack.
“So on that morning we woke up, my father actually woke us up urgently at 6:30 because of all the missiles and we slept on the second floor of the house which is outside, so we took the children immediately downstairs…We waited in the safe room and then after two alarms we went out of the safe room.” Adi accounts.
“Tal actually went outside again to get some things from the second floor and came back again. Luckily not hurt because the terrorists were already close by. Then my father received the message that terrorists infiltrated the kibuts and told Tal to lock the door when he got back in…We started hearing screams in Arabic, shots, grenades, and wild laughter around.” Adi continues to give her testimony.
As she continued to give her account of the attack, she mentioned that Hamas had destroyed their possessions in their home and terrorized their family while they were in the safe room. Adi, Tal, their two children, her parents, her aunt, and her cousin were in the safe room as Tal and her father guarded the door in case the Hamas gunmen attempted to infiltrate. She accounts that Shoham negotiated with the “terrorists” in order to spare the lives of his family and they had taken hostage until his release in February this year, and her father was murdered.
“So the terrorists took me first from the window and immediately I could see that one of them had a murder in his eye, he was the one that took me out, and the took me onto the street and I was totally in shock by dozens, 50/60 terrorists just standing there on the road laughing at us.” Tal began his side of the story.
“They walked me to the car and on my right I saw two, actually there were three executed women that just went for a walk…and they had been caught up outside and just executed them in cold blood.” Tal continued to account his story.
“They threw me in the trunk of a car, and we started to drive into Gaza…Eventually we managed to get into Gaza and they took me out of the car and the terrorist who took me out of the window jumped on the roof and with his kalachnikov pointing at me, demanded that I go to my knees. Now I knew at that moment that if I did that he would kill me. So, I go to my knees and when I started to argue with him that I surrendered and he should not kill me, he tried to struggled for like that for half a minute until another terrorist just took me from the shoulders and we went to the street.” said Shoham.
“We still have hope. We could, we can still live. We can go back to living. And this I think is something that I take with me because there is literally nothing scarier that can happen. And still in this moment we have a chance to live. And we grab onto this chance to live.” said Adi.
The first conference was held in Johannesburg on Sunday, 3 August 2025 and will continue on Wednesday, 6 August 2025 in Durban, where everyone in attendance will have to present their ID upon entry for security measures.