Teddy bear helps hostage’s British family come to terms with grief amid joy over his release

Pete and Gillian Brisley visit the home of their daughter, who was killed along with her two daughters in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, and their son-in-law, who was taken captive, in Kibbutz Be'eri, southern Israel, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, File)

LONDON — As Gillian Brisley and her husband, Pete, watched their son-in-law’s release from captivity on Saturday morning, she clutched a teddy bear to her chest.

It was a reminder of everything the family has suffered since Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing their daughter, Lianne Sharabi, and teenage granddaughters, Noiya and Yahel, while taking son-in-law Eli Sharabi hostage. Eli’s brother Yossi was also killed.

The stuffed toy, which once belonged to Lianne, was a tangible link between the Brisleys and events in the Middle East as they watched the hostage handover unfold on TV at their home in South Wales.

“While Gill was crying, she was holding on to the teddy bear, which was Lianne’s from the age of about 10 years old and which we were lucky enough to find on Kibbutz Be’eri when we went to the house,” Pete Brisley said. “When we went to the house, it was filthy, bullet holes everywhere. So we tidied up the house, tidied up the garden, so if Eli wanted to come home to it, then it looks reasonable because it was an absolute shambles.”

Even that simple cleanup was an act of faith because the family had received no word on Sharabi at all since the militants took him back to Gaza with more than 200 other hostages.

Out of nowhere, the Brisleys were told Friday that Sharabi, 52, was to be one of three hostages released the next day. So they got up early Saturday morning to see their son-in-law walk free.

The moment was bittersweet. They were thrilled that he was finally free but horrified by the pale, emaciated figure they saw on TV. This wasn’t the swarthy, robust man they last saw 18 months ago. The spark that always glinted in his eyes was gone.

“He looks as though he’s been to Belsen,’’ Pete Brisley said, referring to the World War II concentration camp.

Sharabi’s release also triggered other emotions for family members, who had suppressed their grief by focusing their energies on securing his freedom.

When asked how she felt, Gillian Brisley said she was relieved he was free. But there was more to say.

“The emotion of seeing him also then brought the grief of losing our girls right up to our throats,” she said. “We just sat here and we cried. We cried for our loss. We cried with relief that Eli was on his way home. We cried for Yossi. Just, you know, mixed emotions.”

Then there’s the continuing concern for Sharabi.

The family doesn’t know whether Sharabi was told about what happened to his wife and daughters before he was released. They hope he was, so that he doesn’t have to process that grief after surviving 490 days in captivity, said Stephen Brisley, Lianne’s brother.

Lianne met Eli Sharabi on a three-month work experience assignment at Kibbutz Be’eri, married and then made her home in Israel.

Naturally, the bear came along. Growing up in Wales, the bear was part of the family.

When they were being naughty, her brothers would hide the bear from her, or stick it in a drawer with only its toes dangling out, Stephen Brisley remembered. It also participated in tea parties on the bedroom floor and sat in the audience as the kids pretended to hold rock concerts with tennis rackets for guitars and broomsticks for microphones.

For a family that isn’t religious and doesn’t find strength in prayer, the bear now provides a link to lost loved ones.

“Mum has found it a great comfort to speak to Lianne’s bear, and she says basically she speaks to the bear every morning, every evening and she speaks to the bear as though she’s talking to Lianne,” Stephen Brisley said.

“I think it’s been a cathartic experience for her. … It’s a tangible sort of physical connection to somebody that you can’t have that real hug with.’’