He Was Kidnapped. His Wife Fought For Him
- Hananya Naftali
- Oct 14
- 5 min read
Every morning, for 738 days, one woman woke up without her husband, and one little boy blew out his birthday candles without his father.
“Every morning I wake up without my son, without my wife, it tears me apart,” said Elkana Bohbot from captivity in Gaza. These were not the words of a soldier at war, but of a man who had gone to work, and ended up in hell.
On October 7, 2023, Elkana Bohbot, a 35-year-old Israeli husband, father, and music lover, was working at the Supernova Festival near Re’im. He was helping evacuate the wounded when Hamas terrorists stormed the site. Within hours, the phone that his wife, Rivka, and his mother, Ruchama, had been desperately calling went silent. At 10:00 a.m., Hamas released the first video: Elkana, bound, beaten, and terrified, dragged into Gaza.
That was the last time anyone saw him free for more than two years.
The Face of Evil, the Voice of Faith
In captivity, Elkana was seen in several Hamas videos. He looked frail, his face bruised, his spirit cracked but not broken. “This isn’t psychological warfare,” he said in one clip. “My real war is with myself, every morning I wake up without my son, without my wife. It’s cutting me to pieces.”
Those words cut through Israel like a knife. They weren’t just about one man, they were about every Israeli family living the nightmare of October 7. Every mother who sent her son to dance. Every wife who went to sleep next to her husband and woke up to an empty bed.
For 738 days, Rivka Bohbot refused to let her husband’s face fade into the endless list of hostages. She became a warrior in her own right, not with a gun, but with faith, fury, and a microphone. Standing in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, she called out to the world: “Elkana is alive but suffering under inhumane conditions. He is fighting to come home, but he cannot do it alone.”
She pleaded. She prayed. She shouted when the silence was too loud. “We waited, we hoped, we suffered, but enough is enough!” she declared at one rally.
A Boy Without a Father
Their son, Ra’am, turned five this year. His last two birthdays were marked not by cake and laughter, but by a small ceremony in Hostage Square. His mother would light the candles and whisper, “Blow them out with faith.” She wrote him a letter:
“Since the day you were born, you were my angel on earth. Your father isn’t with us in body, but he’s with us in spirit, in the breeze that touches your forehead, in the sunlight on your face, in your dreams when he hugs you.”
The world looked away. The international media ignored Israel's fight for the hostages. For many, these were just numbers, hostages in an endless conflict. But for Ra’am, it was everything.
While his family fought for him in Israel’s town squares, Elkana was held in Gaza’s tunnels, the darkness beneath the earth where Hamas hides both its crimes and its captives. He was chained for nearly the entire 738 days. The only time they freed him from his shackles, he later told his family, was on his wedding anniversary, the day they let him shower.
He saw the videos of his wife and child fighting for him. Hamas showed them to him, as if to mock his pain. But instead, it gave him strength. “I saw you,” he told Rivka after his release. “You gave me the will to live.”
When asked what he felt after stepping out into the sunlight, Elkana said quietly, “I’m happy to see the sun. I’m happy to see the trees. I saw the sea, you can’t imagine how precious that is.”
The Moment of Return
After 738 days in captivity, Elkana was finally released in a hostage deal. When Rivka saw him, she ran into his arms and said through tears, “I waited for you. I can’t believe it’s you.”
And Elkana, now 36, whispered back: “It’s over. I’m whole. You did everything right. I’m proud of you, you’re a warrior.”
His mother, Ruchama, said simply, “This is the greatest gift of all.”
Outside their home in Mevasseret Zion, neighbors, family, and friends waved Israeli flags and sang. “Elkos, how good it is that you’re home,” read one banner. For the first time in over two years, Israel celebrated something pure, a reunion.
A Love That Defied Hamas
The terrorists who kidnapped him thought they could break Israel by breaking its families. But they underestimated one thing: the faith and fire of a Jewish woman. Rivka’s strength wasn’t just personal, it was national. She represented every mother and wife who refuses to surrender to terror.
Psalm 126 says, “Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.” Rivka sowed her tears for two years straight. Now she holds her harvest in her arms.
When Elkana hugged his son for the first time since the kidnapping, Ra’am whispered one word - “Abba.” For two years, he had practiced saying it to photos and videos. Now, he said it to the man himself.
Never Again Means Never Again
Israel is a small country, but it has the biggest heart in the world. We cry, we fight, we bury our dead, and somehow, we still find the strength to live. While the West debates “ceasefires” and “proportionality,” Israel is fighting for the right of one father to tuck in his son at night.
Elkana Bohbot’s story is about love, resilience, and the madness of a world that tolerates evil when it’s directed at Jews.
But his return reminds us: light still defeats darkness. The same God who brought the Israelites out of Egypt brought Elkana out of Gaza. And the same God who heard the cries of Rivka and Ra’am still hears the cries of every family waiting for their loved ones.
Rivka once said that her quiet protests didn’t help. That patience didn’t move the needle. Maybe so. But her faith did. Her persistence did. Her refusal to stop fighting, that’s what carried her husband home.
Now, when she tucks her son into bed, she no longer tells him to “blow out the candles with faith.” She tells him, “Abba is home.”
And maybe, just maybe, that’s the lesson for all of us: that no matter how dark the tunnel, there’s always a way out, if someone on the outside refuses to stop fighting.
He was kidnapped. His wife fought for him. And love won.
“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” – Exodus 14:14