Amit Shani

Amit Shani's ordeal began on October 7, amidst a violent assault by Hamas on Kibbutz Be'eri, which led to his capture and subsequent 53-day captivity. On that fateful morning, as the kibbutz was besieged with rockets and marauding gunmen, Amit, then 15, found himself in a dire situation with his family. His mother, Tal Shani, in a desperate bid to protect her children, gathered Amit and his two younger sisters into his bedroom, their designated safe room.

The tranquility of their sanctuary was shattered when Hamas gunmen forcibly entered their home, breaking down the door to the safe room amidst billowing smoke. In a harrowing turn of events, Amit, along with his neighbor Yossi Sharabi and Sharabi's daughter's visiting boyfriend, Ofir Engel, were coerced into a small, black car by the invaders.

Tal Shani's pleas for her son's release, offering herself in his stead, were met with the cold barrel of a gun, though, mercifully, no shots were fired. Amit's father, Nir Shani, also survived the ordeal, albeit wounded.

Amidst this chaos, Amit managed to send frantic text messages to his friends, detailing the imminent threat and his dire circumstances, which were later shared publicly by his cousin, Elle Benami. "At my moms (sic) urgent they're shooting and knocking at the door. They are about to break in at any moment. They are shooting," read a series of messages shortly after 10 am local time on the day of the attack. At 12:16 pm the day of his kidnapping, Shani messaged the friends' group chat again: "We need urgently House 112" and "They broke in" "There are terrorists in my house."

Benami told FOX News that Amit was the only one from his family taken hostage because there was no room left in the terrorists' vehicle.