Held Hostage in Gaza

It was meant to be a fun birthday outing.

Sharona Shmunis-Harel, an interior designer from Rishon LeZion, a city near Tel Aviv, just turned 40. She and a large group of female friends decided to celebrate by going to the Nova Music Festival together. Sharona’s husband Yotam encouraged her to go, promising he’d take care of their two young children while Sharona was away.

Dedicated to “friends, love and peace,” the festival was an all-night party held on farmland in Kibbutz Re’im, 3.3 miles from the Gaza border. Approximately 3,500 people attended. As dawn broke on Saturday, October 6, Hamas struck the festival; it was one of their first targets as terrorists crossed into Israel. 260 people were killed at the scene.

Sharona’s Story

Sharona’s brother-in-law, Ohad Harel, described what happened in an exclusive Aish.com interview with Ohad in Sharona’s parents’ home as he was surrounded by her family who are stricken with fear. They want the world to know what has happened.

“Saturday morning,” Ohad recalls, “we were woken up by the air raid sirens at 6:30am.” Ohad and his wife and child live in Rishon Lezion, close to Sharona and Yotam, Sharona’s parents, and other relatives. It’s a large, close-knit Israeli family. “Every Friday night we get together for Kiddush and Shabbat dinner.” Sharona is the life of the party.

Sharona Shmunis-Harel

“As the air raid sirens broke the morning quiet, my brother called me saying Sharona is at a big music festival in the south. She sent him a message saying people have shot at them and she’s hiding.” Ohad picked up his brother and drove him down to the festival site. They arrived just as the earliest first responders appeared on the scene.

“It’s too hard to even speak about it,” Ohad explains of the 109 km journey. Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israel that morning. Vegetation on both sides of the highway was on fire. “All the bushes were burning,” Ohad recalls. “We saw a few bodies on the way, on the side of the road.”

The scene at Kibbutz Re’im was even more harrowing. “We saw a lot of people crawling out of the bushes where they hid during the shooting.” Ohad and Yotam showed people Sharona’s photograph, asking if anybody had seen her. “They were post-traumatic,” he explains. Many of the survivors they spoke with couldn’t even answer.

As police began to seal the perimeter, Ohad and Yotam searched for Sharona elsewhere in the area. “We went to every settlement on the border to check if maybe she’s there because people ran away from the festival in all directions. We went to the hospitals in the region but nothing….” The two brothers couldn’t find any trace of her.

Feared Kidnapped in Gaza

Later on, Sharona’s friends pieced together some of what happened. When the shooting began, Sharona and several friends ran to their car. They tried to drive away, but were immediately confronted with Hamas gunmen who were shooting at the fleeing cars. Panicked, the women got out of the car and ran away in different directions. Sharona’s friends survived the shooting, but could find no trace of Sharona. They believe she is one of the 150 Israelis taken hostage and brought to Gaza.

“It’s been four days we’ve been trying to look for her,” Ohad explains. “Every day I take my brother to the area to look for her. By now, a lot of people have received messages from family members; we got nothing.” Sharona’s name has appeared on two unofficial lists compiled by Israeli news media of Israelis who’ve been kidnapped by Hamas and brought to Gaza. The last signal from her phone on Saturday was from the Gaza border.

“Where is Mommy?”

Sharona’s and Yotam’s two children have been asking where their mother is. They are used to Sharona taking them to the many after school activities and fun outings.

“We just let them know she was in a party, and now people are looking for her - that’s it,” Ohad relates about his niece and nephew. But the children’s questions are becoming more persistent and they are beginning to realize that something is very wrong.

Ohad notes that in their large, sprawling family, Sharona is the one who is always taking care of other people, always giving of herself to others. Everyone in her family is heartbroken, filled with dread about what she is going through right now. “They know how Hamas deal with their captives.”

Sharona’s family has a request for everyone around the world: “We want everybody to demand that Hamas set free the civilians they took. Babies. Women. Even in wartime, it’s between two countries, two armies; it’s not between people who went to a party to get slaughtered…I want the world leaders to demand to set them free, without any conditions.”

As Sharona’s family continues to await news of her fate in Gaza, they ask that people around the world pray for her release and put pressure on their elected representatives to demand that Hamas free their hostages. Please say Psalms for Sharona and keep her in your prayers. And please call or email your elected officials today to demand that they insist Hamas free every one of their captives.

Addendum: We sadly report that Sharona's remains were found and identified; she was murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7. May her memory be a blessing.