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

It was a reminder of everything the family has suffered since the Hamas terror group attacked Israel on October 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 taken hostage and later killed.

The stuffed toy, which once belonged to Lianne, was a tangible link between the UK-based 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 Palestinian terror group took him back to Gaza, along with 250 other hostages, in an onslaught that also saw some 1,200 people........

© The Times of Israel