Hostage Relationship Rebuilding After Hamas Captivity

Eliya Cohen and Ziv Abud, who married approximately one week ago, revealed in an interview published Friday in Iisrael Hayom that their emotional reunion and wedding followed a difficult period during which they had to essentially start their relationship from scratch.

Throughout the 505 days Cohen spent held in Hamas tunnels in Gaza, he believed Abud had been killed in the safe room where they had sheltered. As his release approached, she worried that the long separation had caused him to emotionally shut down toward her.

She described her fear: "What if now he sees me and says, 'What's the connection? I've completely erased you'? The moment Eliya didn't know I was alive, he probably created some kind of emotional block. I was afraid he wouldn't be able to remove that barrier."

When they finally reunited, both discovered that while their love remained, they had each fundamentally changed since October 7. Cohen described the jarring transition from captivity back to a relationship: "Suddenly there are traits you don't like, and you say, come on, I love her, but really, there are things I don't like, and why do I need this at all? Why do I need to argue now? A month ago I was in a tunnel."

According to Cohen, the decision to stay together came from love: "There are many difficult things, but as I always say, you have to choose to see the good." He added that he sees Abud as the mother of his future children and remembers that the qualities that define her are also what he wanted before he was abducted.

Abud explained that the turning point came when they stopped comparing their pre-massacre relationship to their post-captivity reality. "We understood that this is a new relationship and that we're not the same people, and we needed to make ourselves understand that what we had before doesn't exist anymore. It doesn't. You're new, building everything from scratch."

The bride and groom enter the chuppah. (Or Gefen Communications)

One gap Cohen recalled involved the language Abud had adopted during the time he was gone. "Ziv suddenly started talking to me with words like 'triggers' and 'anxiety attacks.' Now, you people here have been in therapy for three years already, but I just came back. I told her, 'Talk to me in the language of October 6.' Crazy gaps. We had to work on this very, very hard."

Abud acknowledged that early on, the disconnect between public perception and private reality troubled her: "Everyone looks and thinks everything is perfect, but in the beginning everything wasn't perfect. We had to work very hard to make it what it is today."