This Israeli hostage story will touch you in ways words can't describe.

This is the improbable story of Sapir and Sasha, two young Israelis kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023.

photo: courtesy

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You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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Recently, I had the privilege of hearing Sapir and Sasha, two young Israelis kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023, speak in person.

What began as a simple love story became a tale of survival, faith, and the unimaginable resilience of the human spirit.

Sapir and Sasha met on a dating app in 2022. Both were in their 20s, both after their army service, both software engineers.

Sapir came from a semi-religious Israeli family. Sasha, an only child, had immigrated to Israel from Russia with his parents when he was 3 years old. They settled in Kibbutz Nir Oz, just two kilometers (1.2 miles) from the Gaza border.

Two months before October 7th, Sapir and Sasha decided to move in together — to, as she put it, “see if it would work.” Sapir, who kept kosher and wanted a traditional Jewish home, was having doubts. Sasha was essentially atheist, a background shared by many Russian immigrants whose families came from the former Soviet Union, where religion was suppressed.

“I want our home to be kosher,” she told him before they moved in together. “That’s fine, I can tolerate that,” he said, “but if you want to keep Shabbat too, that’ll be a red line for me.”

On Friday, October 6, 2023, they planned to visit Sasha’s parents at the kibbutz and stay the night. It was the Jewish holiday, Simchat Torah. But that Friday morning, Sasha woke up uneasy for some reason and suggested they cancel their visit to the kibbutz. Sapir persuaded him to go anyway; it felt wrong to cancel on his parents last minute.

On the bus ride south, she had her own doubts — not about the trip, but about their relationship. Maybe they weren’t meant to last, she thought. She wanted faith at the center of her life; he wanted nothing to do with it.

“In my world, there is no such thing as luck — neither good luck nor bad luck. Everything happens for a reason,” she said. “For Sasha, everything was either good luck or bad luck.”

That Friday night was like any other on the kibbutz: a family dinner, followed by time with Sasha’s friends and a movie.

Then came dawn.

At around 6 in the morning, Sapir and Sasha awoke to the sound of Palestinian rockets screaming overhead. Sasha brushed it off as “just another round between Israel and Hamas.” He grew up in the backyard of these clashes; it was “normal” to him. Sapir, who had grown up in northern Israel, didn’t know what to think.

Not long after hearing that terrorists had breached a nearby kibbutz, Sapir and Sasha began to pick up the sounds outside: rapid Arabic shouting, boots slamming the earth, chaos closing in. Sapir wrapped herself tightly in a blanket and wedged into the narrow space beneath the bed, her body trembling and slick with sweat. She began to whisper Psalm 27 (the same one she’d been reciting every day for the past month), pleading for protection, for light, for life.

Outside, death moved methodically. She could hear the gunfire, the grenades, the doors kicked open one by one. Screams echoed throughout the kibbutz. Then came a vehicle that stopped just outside their home. The front-door lock shattered with a single gunshot. Ten terrorists stormed in, overturning furniture, shouting orders, dragging Sasha to the floor. When they unrolled her blanket, Sapir’s prayer ended mid-breath.

“In my pajamas, they pulled me out,” she said. “Sasha was on his knees, his face covered in blood, his hands behind his head.”

Moments later, they threw her onto a motorcycle, wedged between two gunmen. The bike tore around the kibbutz’s looped road before heading toward the border, just a mile and a half away. “The last thing I saw was Sasha running,” she said. “Then I heard the gunshots.”

Sasha’s father was murdered that morning. His mother and grandmother were also taken hostage. Sasha himself was shot in both legs and stabbed in the back as he was dragged toward Gaza. He now walks permanently with crutches.

That day, Kibbutz Nir Oz was largely destroyed. Palestinian terrorists entered all but six of 200-plus homes in the small community and either murdered or kidnapped one of every four residents, 117 people out of some 400. Nearly all of the kibbutz’s public buildings were destroyed.

As Sapir was driven deeper into Gaza, she saw “thousands upon thousands” of people flooding the streets. They cheered, spat, screamed, and swung fists at her as the motorcycle sped by. “They were celebrating,” she said, still disbelieving. “They were celebrating the kidnapping.”

When her captors finally dumped her in an apartment with other hostages that first day, Sapir’s mind replayed every decision that had led her there. What if we hadn’t gone to the kibbutz? What if I’d hidden somewhere else? The questions swarmed. Then she stopped herself. “I told myself, I believe in God. If God sent me here, then I’m meant to be here. The only question is why.”

Sapir, normally shy and anxious, found herself becoming something unexpected: the group’s source of strength. “I started smiling all the time,” she said. “When one of the terrorists asked me, ‘Why are you so happy?’ I told him, ‘I’m in Gaza — why not?’”

Her humor became armor. She invented games. She drew her fellow hostages into conversations. She learned which guards might sneak them scraps of food. The more she could make others smile, the less she felt like a victim, and the more she felt she had a purpose.

Her wit carried her through the 55 days that followed. In one story, she and a teenage hostage, just 16 years old, were told they were being taken down into the tunnels. The girl panicked. “Sapir, I’m so scared,” she whispered. “I don’t want to go.” Sapir told her: “We don’t have a choice. And if we’re already in Gaza, we might as well go see the main attraction.”

Fifty-four days after October 7th, Hamas released Sasha’s mother and grandmother. The next day, Sapir went home, too, released as part of a ceasefire arrangement between Israel and Hamas. After her release, Sapir decided to move into the hotel where Sasha’s mother was staying, to be with her. Some time later, his mother broke down. Her husband was dead. Her only child was still in Gaza. “So I promised her grandchildren,” Sapir said. “Twin girls.”

That gave Sasha’s mother hope for awhile. But when despair returned, Sapir raised the stakes: “I told her I’d give her six grandkids. Well, five, considering my age. One’s optional.”

Meanwhile, Sasha’s captivity lasted 520 days. Sapir became his biggest advocate, traveling to Europe and North America to speak about him and the other hostages.

A story Sasha told from his captivity was this: Once, one of his captors brought his 3-year-old daughter to see him. The little girl hid behind her father’s leg. He said something to her in Arabic. She emerged, walked up to Sasha, and hit him. “Why did she hit me?” he asked. The father answered: “Because you’re a Jew.”

Sasha says he found God and faith in captivity, eight months of which were spent in isolation in the tunnels with barely one tiny meal a day and enough air to breathe. “It was like having Yom Kippur for 500 straight days,” he said, laughing softly.

Today, Sasha wears a kippah and prays regularly. He and Sapir are engaged, and their wedding is planned for March.

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