Alon Ohel: Seriously injured, still held by Hamas

The parents of Alon Ohel, a 24-year-old hostage held in Gaza, are tormented by the knowledge that Western countries are providing medical treatment to Gazans through aid organizations while their son, gravely injured, receives no care.

“We cannot sleep at night,” they told Channel 12, asking, “Which country provides medical care to one side while knowing there are injured hostages in life-threatening conditions who are not receiving medical treatment? What international law allows this to happen? Gaza violates every basic international rule by holding wounded individuals without medical care.”

Kobi Ohel, Alon’s father, stood in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square, sharing chilling details from freed hostage Eliya Cohen, who was held alongside Alon.

Cohen revealed that Alon “lost vision in one eye, with a severe head injury and shrapnel throughout his body that endangers his life. He was wounded by grenades in the ‘death shelter’ and endured a series of tortures, including severe violence and gun butts to his head.”

Kobi added that Alon “received degrading treatment from Hamas; a 19-year-old boy sewed him up with needle and thread without pain relief, and afterward, Hamas gave him paracetamol pills."

This grim account sets the stage for Alon’s 570-day ordeal in Hamas’s tunnels since his kidnapping from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023. A pianist from Israel’s Galilee, Alon’s story of survival, scarred by brutal injuries and cruel conditions, has seized hearts worldwide, with his family’s campaign, yellow pianos from Tel Aviv to New York, keeping his plight alive.

Alon was 22 when Hamas attacked the Nova festival at Kibbutz Re’im, killing over 360 people and taking 240 hostages. A music lover from Lavon, a small Galilee community, he arrived at 5:30 a.m. with friends, eager to celebrate. When rockets fell, they fled to a roadside bomb shelter, later called the “death shelter,” with 27 others.

Hamas threw grenades inside, killing 16, including Alon’s friend Aner Shapira, who died throwing them back. Only seven survived, hiding under bodies, while Alon, Or Levy, Eliya Cohen, and Hersh Goldberg-Polin were dragged off. Idit Ohel, Alon’s mother, says video footage shows a UNRWA worker among the kidnappers hauling Alon into Gaza. His phone, dropped in the chaos, was found at Soroka Medical Center. Goldberg-Polin was killed in captivity in August 2024, Levy and Cohen were freed in February 2025, but Alon remains one of the 59 hostages still held.

For 492 days, the Ohel family had no word on Alon’s fate. On February 8, 2025, freed hostages Levy and Eli Sharabi confirmed he was alive but in dire shape, chained at the ankles in tunnels 40 meters underground, starved, beaten, and suffering from untreated shrapnel wounds to his eye, shoulder, arm, and torso. Doctors warn he could lose his sight permanently. In a tearful Channel 12 interview on February 9, Idit said, “He’s got shrapnel in his eye, shoulder, and arm. He’s bound in chains, getting almost no food, just one pita a day.” Cohen’s Ynet account on February 24 added that Alon sees only shadows, sleeps on the tunnel floor with one shared blanket, and lives in constant darkness.

The Ohels are fighting hard to bring Alon home. Idit told JNS on April 9, “My son’s down there, screaming and crying, begging for someone to get him out, and nobody hears him. I have to be his voice.” They’ve held protests, meditations, and runs, blasting music toward Gaza, hoping Alon might feel the “vibe,” as Idit shared with NPR in January 2024.

A yellow piano, a nod to Alon’s passion, sits in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square, with others in New York, Paris, Berlin, and Pittsburgh, where the Jewish Federation rallies for him. On Alon’s 24th birthday, February 10, 2025, spent in captivity, musicians played at Hostage Square, and Idit led a meditation for his release. His sister Inbal’s birthday, coinciding with Levy and Sharabi’s release, brought a small comfort: Alon sent her a birthday wish through Sharabi.

The family’s frustration with the hostage deal’s first phase, which freed 33 women, children, elderly, and sick hostages in January-February 2025, is intense.

Alon, despite his wounds, wasn’t deemed a “humanitarian case” as a man under 50, pushed to a second phase tied to a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal, talks that are now stalled.

On March 28, Idit and Kobi wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, citing Levy and Sharabi’s accounts of Alon’s near-blindness and demanding no Gaza aid until hostages are freed. “Hamas lied,” they said, accusing the group of breaking the deal by holding wounded captives. Netanyahu’s call to them, reported by Channel 12, offered no clear hope for a quick deal. Idit told the UN Human Rights Council on March 5 that the International Red Cross’s failure to visit hostages violates international law, pointing to Alon’s dire conditions.

Before his abduction, Alon was full of life. Playing piano since age nine, he planned to study jazz at Tel Aviv’s Rimon School of Music and move to the city with friends after traveling in Asia. “He’s the glue that sticks people together,” Idit told The Jerusalem Post Podcast, mentioning his love for cars, cooking, and surfing. His friends still keep a room ready for him in Tel Aviv, a gesture that breaks Idit’s heart. At the “death shelter,” Alon was hit by grenade shrapnel, and Kobi said Hamas beat him with gun butts, compounding the trauma of his makeshift treatment.

People are talking about Alon on X. On February 9, Hen Mazzig posted, “RIGHT NOW, Alon Ohel is: Bound in chains, being starved, tortured, unable to see from an eye injury.” Eylon Levy noted his abduction by a UNRWA worker, and on his birthday, Aviva Klompas shared Idit’s pain. TheYellowPiano project, with 34 pianos in Israel and 20 worldwide, keeps Alon’s story front and center, with signs reading, “Alon, you are not alone.” Pittsburgh’s Jewish Federation, linked to Misgav, Alon’s region, held a music tribute in August 2024, and Serbia, his ancestral home, hosted a piano event that year.

Alon’s life now hangs on either a miraculous rescue by the IDF or a stalled deal, leaving a nation wondering how much longer one of its own can endure.

Sources: The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, Ynetnews, JNS.org, Haaretz, Reuters, NPR, The Free Press, Israel National News, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, Channel 12, Yael Chekhanover