Eliya Cohen, 26, was violently abducted by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, after he and hundreds of other young people were attacked at the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Reim.
Some 40 people were kidnapped from the festival alone, and 364 were murdered. Eliya and 135 others are still in Hamas’ captivity in Gaza today—four months after the October 7 attacks.
Eliya’s mother, Sigi Cohen, speaks to The Media Line from her home in the quiet community of Tzur Hadassah; roughly 8 miles southwest of Jerusalem.
The Media Line: Sigalit—Sigi—thank you for having us in your home today. For the record, can you tell us your full name and your relation to Eliya?
Sigi Cohen: I’m Sigi Cohen, the mother of Eliya who was kidnapped into Gaza on October 7 [2023].
TML: How old is Eliya?
Sigi Cohen: Eliya is 26 years old. He [was] born in April 1997. He’s my first and only son. After him I have three girls; Yuval, Michal, and Tamar.
Sigi recalls the terrible events on October 7 leading to her sons kidnapping
TML: Can you tell me about Eliya’s abduction?
Sigi Cohen: I’ll start with myself. On the 7th of October, we woke up from an alarm at about 8:30 am here in Tzur Hadassah. We got up and went to synagogue. With all the alarms, we went to synagogue because we didn’t know what happened. But in the synagogue, there were two soldiers that told us there’s a lot of mess in Israel, and we must go back home because we’re at war.
We came home and I got a phone call from the sister of Ziv, Eliya’s girlfriend. She called and told me that there was a lot of mess at the party where they were.
TML: They were at the Nova festival?
Sigi Cohen: Yes. I knew they went to a festival, but I didn’t know which festival they went to. So she [Ziv’s sister] told me there’s a lot of mess at the festival, but Eliya is OK. She saw a picture of him from a hospital and he’s fine. And Ziv is missing. That’s what she told me. I closed the phone and started to pray to [for] Ziv, because Eliya looked fine. We started to pray to [for] Ziv, that she’ll be found and that she’ll be OK.
I heard a lot of messages on my phone. I opened it, and on Facebook I got a message from Eliya’s friends from the past who asked me if it’s true that Eliya was kidnapped to Gaza. I asked her, “Why are you telling me that? I don’t understand why.” She told me because they had a picture of Eliya from Gaza. I asked her to show me the picture, to send it to me. And she sent me the same picture that [Ziv’s] sister sent me, but it had a title in Arabic that said “Israeli prisoner” in Gaza.
I still didn’t believe that he’s a hostage; that he’s kidnapped, and I tried to call all the hospitals in Israel because I thought maybe it was a psychological [war] from Hamas. That they took the picture from a hospital in Israel and wrote this message. But after I called all the hospitals and Eliya wasn’t there, I understood that maybe it’s correct that he was in Gaza.
TML: So he was in a hospital in Gaza in the photo?
Sigi Cohen: Yes. that’s what they say, [what] they wrote.
TML: I understand that Ziv was found later.
Sigi Cohen: Yes.
TML: So she wasn’t missing in the end?
Sigi Cohen: Yes, Ziv was in the [bomb] shelter. And on Saturday night, she was taken to the hospital. They called her and she told me what happened. She told me that they heard a [red alert] alarm at 6:30 am, and that they tried to run from the [Nova] party. They started to move towards the car, but after some minutes, friends of Eliya called him and told him to stop the car because a lot of terrorists were there and shooting [at] him.
They told Eliya, stop the car and run by foot. So Eliya and Ziv stopped the car near a migunit, a small [bomb] shelter by Kibbutz Reim, and they stayed there with 29 more people. And they waited for help, for the police, the army, someone to take them from there. But two vans came with terrorists, with loud music in Arabic.
At the beginning, they threw grenades into the shelter. And one of the people who was there threw it back, until one exploded and killed him. And then the terrorists came into the shelter and started to shoot live fire and RPGs. Some of the bodies fell on Ziv.
She was under those bodies for more than three hours. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe, [so] that the terrorists will not see she’s alive. And she told me that Eliya was shot, she thinks, by a bullet. He screamed and fell on the bodies and told her he saw her and told her that he was shot, but that he’s OK. But he had a bullet in his leg. Then two terrorists came and took him from the bodies. They took him to the van and into Gaza.
Ziv got up from the bodies after three hours and looked for Eliya, and she didn’t see him. So she understood that he was taken to Gaza. And after ten days, we also got a movie from the kidnappers, and we saw that. We saw Eliya with two terrorists who were taking him because he couldn’t stand on his leg. They took him and we could see them taking him to the van.
TML: They sent the video to you?
Sigi Cohen: No. One of the hostages who was kidnapped with him, his parents got this movie, and they sent it to us because they know that he was with Eliya in the same shelter.
TML: And Ziv, Eliya knew that she was hiding there?
Sigi Cohen: Yes. I don’t know what he is thinking about her. If [he knows that] she’s alive. Because after he was taken from there to the van, she told me that the terrorists came and shot the bodies to be sure they are dead; and she could feel the shooting of the bodies above her. So we don’t know if Eliya knows she is alive.
TML: How did she get out? At that time the terrorists were gone and she found someone to help her?
Sigi Cohen: She came out from the bodies and looked around for Eliya. Then she told me that she sat on the ground and told herself, “Please take me with him; I don’t want to be here.” She didn’t understand what happened. She was so upset with the situation. And after another three hours, some civilians came and they took her to the hospital with four other people who also survived from this shelter.
TML: What was the final contact that you had with Eliya?
Sigi Cohen: On Wednesday.
TML: Before the party?
Sigi Cohen: Yes. He was here. We celebrated Sukkot together. I invited him to lunch with all my family. This is the last time I saw him and the last time I spoke with him.
TML: Have you heard anything about his whereabouts since then; since that initial video? Has anyone, maybe even some of the released hostages, have they told you anything about hiscondition?
Sigi Cohen: No. From this moment we don’t know anything. None of the hostages who came back to Israel saw him. And we don’t know anything about him from this moment. I feel that, I know in my heart that he’s OK, because I saw in the movie that he looks fine. He looks terrified, but he looks like, we can only see his face and he looks fine. But we don’t know anything. Nobody saw him. The army didn’t say they saw him or that they know where he is. Nothing.
Eliya loves parties and traveling the world
TML: Tell me more about Eliya as a person. What did he do for a living? Where was he living?
Sigi Cohen: Eliya is living in Tel Aviv with his girlfriend Ziv. He has a big heart. A huge big heart. He loves people. He loves to help people. He has a lot of friends here in Israel and all over the world because from when he was 17, he went to these parties. He loved to dance, and he knows a lot of people from these parties. And he also produced some parties. So he knows a lot of musical people who come to do these parties, and these musical people invited him to parties all over the world and in Europe.
He was in Mexico and India and Thailand, and he has a lot friends from those countries. They’re very worried about him. They published about him in those countries because they love Eliya because he’s very friendly. He loves to help everyone. And his friends told me that he’s the glue that holds them together. He’s the glue of all the friends. Everyone wants to be with him, around him, always. He also loves dogs and animals. And he is a marketing person. He knows how to speak and to sell things. I hope that it will help him there [in Gaza], with the terrorists that keep him.
TML: You told me that he brought Ace [the dog] home when he was a child.
Sigi Cohen: Yes. One Friday night, I was asleep. And he came and asked me to go down to see what he brought. So I came down and I saw a little puppy. And he told me, “Mommy, I want this puppy to be here. You’ll allow me?”The puppy was this puppy. It was so cute. So I told him “OK,” he can stay here. And from this moment he is here. He’s 11 years old.
TML: And how long ago was that?
Sigi Cohen: He’s 11 years old. And he [Eliya] has another dog in Tel Aviv who really misses him. He’s very sad. The dog’s love Eliya and Eliya loves the dogs. Every time Eliya and Ziv went to fly to any country—they fly a lot, they love to travel the world. And every time they travel, the bring me his dog from Tel Aviv. And he was very sad until Eliya came [back]. He’s very connected to Eliya. They have a good connection to each other. Hesleeps with him in the bed, between him and Ziv.
TML: Tell me another story that, when you think of Eliya, this is how you think of him.
Sigi Cohen: Eliya is a very happy man. He’s realistic. He looks around him and knows how to deal with the situation. He is the person who has … I love to ask him and to consult with him for everything. Me and my husband and Ziv also. He’s a very clever boy, and he knows how to deal with situations. I can tell you that I had some medical problems three years ago, and he’s the only one who helped me to get through it.
He spoke with me, he comforted me, he knew to say the direct words to comfort me. And not just me. I know that he does it for everyone he knows. He has one friend with autism. [Eliya] took him like a mother and father. He’s like a mother and father to him. This boy, his friend, doesn’t speak with his parents. And he [Eliya] took him and helped him and does everything for him.
TML: The world is watching the events that have unfolded in Israel and Gaza after October 7. What is it that you think they don’t understand?
Sigi Cohen: I think they don’t understand our side in this war, because they see the civilians in Gaza who are suffering, and they are suffering. But we also suffered here in Israel. For 20 years we got from Gaza many pagazim [mortars and rockets] to the south [of Israel]. Day and night, they always had to run to the shelter. And we didn’t do anything to them. They hate us because we are Jews. That’s the only reason they’re doing it. And I think the world doesn’t understand it. I think you can see that we are giving them [in Gaza] food, water, electricity, and they still hate us. They still don’t understand that we are not the issue in this war.we didn’t start this. We didn’t start this war. And they must understand it.
TML: What would you like the international community to do?
Sigi Cohen: To believe us, first of all. I know that a lot of people don’t believe us that it happened, that the 7th of October happened. But there are a lot of pictures and movies that show it happened. That there are raped women. That they killed and murdered people. That they cut their heads, legs, hands, they did a lot of horrible things and I hope that the [international] community will understand it. That [they’ll understand] we are the victims. And they need to understand that today it’s to us, and tomorrow it can come to Europe and the USA, because they didn’t see that they [Hamas] want that only Islam will be in the world, and it can’t be. And if the world will not understand it, then the world will also get attacked in their countries. That’s what I think. And I ask the [international] community to support us and be with us, to that Hamas will understand that the way they’re working is not good and not correct. This is not the way to live.
TML: And what do you want personally? What do you want and need now?
Sigi Cohen: I want that Eliya will come back. I don’t think that Eliya and all the hostages have to be a part of this war. They’re just civilians that went to dance. Just young people who went to celebrate life. Who didn’t do anything. And they don’t need to be there [in Gaza], underground without food, without water, without light, without air. Where is the world? Really? Where is the world? The world stands by and goes about its business, and they don’t think [about how] there are 136 hostages underground with no light, no air, no food, for four months. Already four months, their lives have stopped. Why? Why? I don’t understand. I want my son back today. I want him to come back. He didn’t need to be part of this war. Not him nor the other hostages. They must come back and the world needs to help us to pressure everyone that can help to bring them back.
TML: Sigi, thank you so much for sharing your story and sharing about Eliya.
Sigi Cohen: Thank you.