Watching Eli Sharabi address the UN was something I’ll never forget

Spending a day with Eli Sharabi is something I will never forget. He should never have been at the UN in the first place, imploring the international body to fulfil its founding principle of upholding international peace by helping bring home every hostage. He should never have been ripped away from his family in Kibbutz Be’eri while more than 100 terrorists maniacally filmed themselves plundering and massacring their way through his community. He should never have been kept in a terror tunnel for 16 months, chained, starved, beaten and humiliated.

“They beat me,” he recalled. “They broke my ribs. We had to beg for food, beg to use the bathroom. Begging was our existence.”

The Eli Sharabi we saw yesterday, retelling his harrowing story and vowing to never stop fighting for the return of every last hostage, was immeasurably courageous. “I’m here today because I survived and I prevailed,” he said, “but that is not enough…not when 59 hostages are still there.”

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The Eli Sharabi I saw away from the cameras and global spotlight yesterday was moving beyond words. Across the street from the UN, he was greeted by a sea of Israelis and Jewish people waving Israel and US flags and brandishing yellow flowers for Eli. He stopped to shake their hands and hug them, thanking them for their support. Inside the UN, when approached by staff members who couldn’t muster the right words to say to him and broke down in tears, he embraced them and told them, “It’ll be ok.”

“My name is Eli Sharabi,” he said in closing at the Security Council. “I am not a diplomat. I am a survivor. Bring them all home now.”

Jonathan Harounoff is Israel’s international spokesperson to the United Nations and author of “Unveiled: Inside Iran’s #WomanLifeFreedom Revolt,” out in August.