My name is Arbel Yehoud. I am 30 and was born and raised in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
My name is Ariel Cunio. I am 28 and was also born and raised in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
We grew up just steps apart, in the same small community in southern Israel, long before we could ever imagine that our lives would be defined by survival.
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On October 7, 2023, we were kidnapped from our home by Hamas terrorists. Arbel was held in captivity for 482 days. Ariel was held for 738 days. We were brought together and separated within hours.
What carried us through those days in hell was not certainty, strength or hope in the abstract. It was love.
Ariel and Arbel reunite on the day of Ariel’s release. (Israeli Government Press Agency)
We grew up together, walking the same paths, surrounded by the same quiet routines. Our parents were neighbors and good friends. We didn’t plan to fall in love. When it found us, it arrived silently and unexpectedly.
At first we kept it to ourselves. Ariel was about to leave for a long trip abroad, and distance felt like an inevitable end. But the further apart we were, the deeper our love grew. When we were reunited, we knew we wanted to build a life together.
We moved to a small, modest house in the kibbutz. We built a simple, cheerful routine: cooking together, dancing in the living room, walking through open fields, talking about the future. We dreamed of children, of family and of growing old in the same place where we once played as children.
We adopted our puppy Murph in early October 2023. Life felt full. Peaceful.
And then, on October 7, everything ended.
Hamas terrorists killed civilians, including women, children and the elderly, when they attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. (Israeli Armed Forces via AP)
We woke up to sirens. When we heard gunshots, we hoped it was the army. We locked ourselves inside. As voices in Arabic came closer, we still didn’t understand. Then our door was broken open. We hid under the bed and tried to stay quiet. They found us. Our dog was shot dead before our eyes. We were beaten, our ribs broken, dragged outside, stripped of our safety and dignity. Our house became the scene of the end of our world.
We drove past a burning house of Ariel’s brother and his family, not knowing if they were still alive. We were driven onto a motorcycle, attacked, taken to Gaza and interrogated. Then, just three hours after we were kidnapped, we were torn apart, screaming.
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Former Hamas hostages Arbel Yehoud (L) and Ariel Cunio (R) held in Israel. (Nataly Bendersky Shalem)
No goodbye. No last words. No way to know if we would ever see each other again. From that moment on we were completely alone.
Each of us was held individually in inhumane conditions: hunger, fear, humiliation, constant threat. Days without light, without time, without knowing what had happened to our families or to each other. The loneliness was the hardest part: being alone with despair, with fear, with the thought that survival might be too hard.
In the darkness we had nothing left but memory. That’s how we held each other in mind. Arbel wrote pages full of dreams about a shared future, drawings of a wedding, of children, of ordinary life. That notebook eventually reached Ariel. It became a lifeline. Proof that someone was waiting.
We both reached a breaking point during our captivity. We both thought about taking our own lives. And we both stopped for the same reason: the thought of the other. The realization that if one of us were to disappear, the other would not survive either.
Scenes of chaos in Khan Younis, as hostages Gadi Moses and Arbel Yehoud had to walk on foot through a Palestinian crowd to waiting Red Cross vehicles on January 30, 2025. (Majdi Fathi/TPS-IL)
When Arbel was released after 482 days, freedom did not feel like freedom. Ariel stayed behind. The guilt was unbearable – guilt for breathing fresh air, seeing daylight, being safe while the other remained captive. Instead of healing, the fight started. Arbel traveled the world, speaking out, meeting leaders, trying to explain what it means to be held alone in captivity, to lose hope, to leave your soulmate behind while time is running out.
Months later, against all odds, we were reunited. Ariel was released after 738 days.
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Now we have no home to return to. The house we built our lives in is gone. About a quarter of our kibbutz were murdered or kidnapped that horrific Saturday. The community we knew has been destroyed. The life we ​​once imagined no longer exists.
But we are here. Together.
Ariel Cunio and his girlfriend Arbel Yehoud. After 482 days, Arbel was finally released in the February prisoner exchange hostages. (Cunio family)
