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UNITED NATIONS — Three years after the deadliest massacre in Israel’s history, Eliya Cohen — who endured 505 days in Hamas captivity — appeared at the United Nations with his newlywed wife, Ziv Abud, a survivor of the Nova music festival massacre, to share his harrowing ordeal with some of the world’s leading diplomats.
“They didn’t let me change clothes or take a shower, even to eat or drink,” Cohen stated during an emotional address moderated by Dr. Phil McGraw at Israel’s U.N. commemoration on Tuesday.
He revealed that captors chained him with heavy iron restraints around his leg and kept lights on continuously to deny the hostages sleep. Nighttime raids, accompanied by shouting, were used to intimidate and terrorize. Cohen described being denied access to restrooms and recalled moments when survival seemed unbearable.
FREED HOSTAGE ROM BRASLAVSKI DETAILS ABUSE, STARVATION DURING 738 DAYS IN GAZA CAPTIVITY
U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz, Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon, freed hostage Eliya Cohen, Nova massacre survivor Ziv Abud, Israeli military observer Oriya Berlin, Dr. Phil McGraw, Fox Business anchor Liz Claman and Israeli musician Idan Raichel gather at U.N. headquarters in New York for Israel’s Oct. 7 commemoration, Oct. 6, 2026.
(Israeli Mission to the UN)
Despite the horrors he faced, Cohen spoke of how he clung to hope throughout his captivity.
“Don’t think about the violence. Don’t think about the torture. Don’t think about everything,” Cohen recalled telling himself. “Just keep going, stay strong. And maybe one day, you’ll return home to your family.”
Cohen was among the 251 individuals abducted during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which claimed the lives of approximately 1,200 people in southern Israel. He personally lost 48 loved ones in the tragedy.
Standing beside him, his wife Ziv carried her own traumatic memories.
Abud and Cohen arrived at the Nova festival just before dawn with her 19-year-old nephew Amit and his girlfriend Karin. As the attack erupted, they sought refuge in a roadside bomb shelter meant for eight people but overwhelmed with 29 others.
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Eliya Cohen who was kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, held in Gaza and released recently, gestures, as a crowd welcomes him while he arrives home from hospital, in Tzur Hadassah, Israel March 4, 2025.
(Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)
Abud described how over 40 militants stormed the shelter with grenades and gunfire. She credited one man inside who repeatedly hurled grenades back outside before sacrificing his life.
Amid the chaos, Cohen shielded Abud beneath fallen bodies, an action that likely saved her life.
“I lost consciousness. Eliya was taken,” Abud said. “After seven hours, I woke up in the shelter surrounded by bodies.”
She struggled to hold back tears as she continued: “It wasn’t even bodies. It was body parts.”
Upon regaining awareness, Abud discovered that Amit and Karin had perished. Forced to sit among the deceased for another seven hours, she became one of only seven survivors from the shelter.
“Four of us went to the festival from the same household,” Abud said. “I am the only one who made it back home that night.”
FORMER HAMAS HOSTAGE COUNTERS HASAN PIKER’S UT AUSTIN EVENT WITH HER STORY OF SURVIVAL
This screengrab from a video released on August 1, 2025 by the armed wing of Palestinian militant group Hamas, shows Israeli hostage Evyatar David looking weak and malnourished. David, who turned 24 in captivity, was abducted during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
(AFP via Getty Images)
For 505 days, Abud advocated tirelessly for Cohen’s return, uncertain if he would ever come home. Meanwhile, Cohen believed while imprisoned that Abud had been killed.
“Now he’s here,” Abud said. “And I can move forward with the future, now that we’ve married.”
Looking ahead, she expressed hopes for “children and family, because we survived—and we must live a normal life,” she said.
Oria Berlin, another Oct. 7 survivor and Israeli visual intelligence officer, also addressed the diplomatic assembly. She had reported to a base near the Gaza border just two days before the attack.
Berlin recalled waking on the morning of Oct. 7 thinking she heard a storm approaching.
Berlin and four other soldiers fled barefoot and in pajamas to a cramped shelter. Though unarmed, they initially underestimated the scale of the assault.
Seconds later, they heard vehicles and gunfire. Berlin described roughly 60 heavily armed militants attacking the base. At one point, a WhatsApp message instructed soldiers to shout “IDF” in Hebrew to help Israeli forces locate them. The poor pronunciation triggered immediate alarm—an infiltrator had accessed a phone.
They stayed silent.
Berlin said they then heard another group calling for identification—followed by gunfire and then silence.
Ten hours into the attack, special forces arrived to extract them.
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Memorials at the site of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, Israel, on Monday, May 27, 2024.
(Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
After learning the extent of loss among her peers, Berlin felt compelled to act. Despite being offered early discharge, she chose to continue serving as an observer for six more months before transitioning to the IDF Public Diplomacy Office.
She noted that she has since addressed audiences ranging from global institutions to high school students, some dismissive due to entrenched bias. “But I stayed,” Berlin said. “Because the truth deserves a voice.”
Before the ceremony, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz met privately with Cohen and Abud, inquiring about his health and expressing relief at seeing them “strong and alive.”
Waltz revealed that on the eve of his release, Hamas attempted to stage a propaganda video featuring Cohen claiming he’d been treated well. “He refused,” Waltz said. “He stood his ground and said no.”
The hostage crisis spanned two years and involved numerous negotiations, releases, and rescue missions. Speaking to Fox News afterward, Waltz emphasized the need to honor both the losses of Oct. 7 and the progress since.
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Protesters rallied near the United Nations, demanding immediate medical care and release of hostages held by Hamas.
(Yoav Ginsburg/Hostages and Missing Families Forum)
Waltz highlighted evolving dynamics throughout the Middle East.
Waltz concluded with a message of solidarity: “America will stand beside the Jewish people.”
Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon turned his focus toward the institution hosting the event during his speech.
MOTHER OF OCTOBER 7 HOSTAGE WHO WAS EXECUTED UNPACKS HER GRIEF IN NEW MEMOIR
Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon and U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz attend Israel’s Oct. 7 commemoration at U.N. headquarters in New York, Oct. 6, 2026.
(Israeli mission to the UN)
Danon admitted that colleagues often tell him he takes criticism of Israel too personally.
“That’s why it hits close to home,” Danon said. “The U.N. seeks to demonize all our children—our brave sons and daughters who sacrifice everything so we may live freely in our homeland. Yes, it is personal. It’s personal for all of us.”
Abud shared their vision of building a family despite the trauma they endured. “We want kids,” she said. “Because we’re alive—and we choose to thrive. We must live a normal life.”
“I won,” Cohen said.
He then addressed the broader audience.
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Freed Israeli hostage Eliya Cohen and his wife, Nova massacre survivor Ziv Abud, speak with Dr. Phil McGraw during Israel’s Oct. 7 commemoration at U.N. headquarters in New York, Oct. 6, 2026.
(Israeli mission to the UN)
Efrat (Effie) Lachter is a reporter for Fox News Digital with over 15 years of experience covering conflict, global affairs, human rights, and political accountability. She has produced more than 200 documentary segments across more than 40 countries, focusing on conflicts, humanitarian emergencies, corruption, human trafficking, gender-based violence, and critical global events. Her investigative work includes exposing human trafficking syndicates, documenting an ISIS torture facility in Syria, reporting on the war in Ukraine, and conducting interviews with world leaders and policymakers. A former Western journalist who entered Russia post-invasion, she has gathered testimonies from opponents of the Kremlin. Lachter holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and a Master’s degree in Political Science. She received the 2022 Peres Center for Peace Award and was a 2023–2024 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan. She has also earned two Rockower Awards for Excellence in Journalism.
