Former hostage couple dreams of space (travel) and time to recover and rebuild their home |
Arbel Yehoud and Ariel Cunio have dreams.
Some of the former hostages’ hopes for the future are bold, like flying to space or meeting Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi. Others, like building a home, having a wedding, raising children, are more mundane.
For the two former hostages, after survived hundreds of days in brutal Gazan captivity apart from each other, simple things like starting a family seem as far-fetched, but also as possible, as rocketing off into orbit.
The pair, who were kidnapped together from Nir Oz on October 7, 2023, are now asking for the public’s help as they attempt to rebuild their shattered lives, seeking to raise NIS 5 million (around $1.6 million) from thousands of donors.
Yehoud 30, and Cunio, 28, describe themselves as high school sweethearts. They say in the campaign that they returned home from captivity “to a new reality that asks them to learn how to breathe again.”
Yehoud, who recently revealed that she had attempted to end her life several times while held hostage, told The Times of Israel in a series of text messages that the couple seeks a new home in place of the one that was destroyed, and a recovery process that will be long and complex.
“What helps is to receive support and love from people in the community, in the area, to know that we are not alone,” said Yehoud, who was described after her kidnapping as someone who loved everything about outer space and astronomy.
Eight members of the extended Cunio family were kidnapped on October 7 as Gazan terrorists stormed the kibbutz, which saw a quarter of its members killed or kidnapped that day.
Aside from Yehoud and Ariel Cunio, gunmen also kidnapped Ariel’s older brother David Cunio, his wife Sharon Alony-Cunio, their twin toddler daughters Emma and Yuli, and Alony-Cunio’s visiting sister, Danielle Alony, and her 5-year-old daughter, Emilia.
Yehoud’s brother, volunteer medic Dolev Yehoud, was considered a hostage until June 2024, when his remains were discovered in Israeli territory.
Cunio’s Argentine grandmother, Esther Cunio, 90, also lived on the kibbutz, and somehow distracted the terrorists who broke into her home on October 7 with a conversation about Messi.
Alony-Cunio, Danielle Alony, and their children were released in the first Israel-Hamas ceasefire in November 2023.
Yehoud was the final living female hostage let go, released on January 30, 2025, after 482 days in captivity. The Cunio brothers returned home on October 30, 2025, after 738 days in captivity.
Silvia Cunio, who was at the forefront of the struggle for her two sons, told The Times of Israel that the family is moving forward “slowly, but surely.”
Cunio said she doesn’t ask her sons or Yehoud about their captivity, but rather waits “for them to tell.”
“I give them their time,” said Cunio. “I can’t pressure them — that’s not who I am. Even though each one had their own story. Sometimes they share something. But I think they don’t want to hurt me, to cause me pain.”
“It’s hard for me,” added Cunio. “I try to help as a mother, as a grandmother.”
Cunio said that the issues facing David and his wife Sharon are different because they are a family unit.
“Ariel and Arbel are quieter,” she said. “They keep more to themselves. In my opinion, that’s a mistake, because the more you talk, the better it is — to let everything out. That’s what helped me over the past two years: to tell everything. Everything that happened to me and everything that happened to everyone. Every home has its own story. Think about it — that’s six different stories within one family.”
Yehoud and Cunio had moved into their own shared home on the kibbutz before October 7, 2023, having returned several months before that from an extended trip to South and Central America.
That home was destroyed during the October 7 onslaught and demolished last month.
“Nir Oz will always be our home, but right now it is hard to imagine returning to live there,” Yehoud, whose grandfather was a founder of the kibbutz, told The Times of Israel.
For now, most of the Cunios are living in Karmei Gat, a neighborhood of Kiryat Gat, where most of the Nir Oz community has relocated while the community is being rebuilt.
Abducted together, Yehoud and Cunio were separated within half an hour of reaching Gaza.
While many of the 251 hostages were held together in small groups by Hamas, both Yehoud and Cunio were kidnapped by a different terror group, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which kept them in solitary confinement.
For a period of time, the couple was able to pass short notes back and forth to one another. They had no idea what happened to the rest of their families.
Cunio told Channel 12 that he was held in an airless crawlspace above the ceiling of a store for about three and a half months, hunched over, surrounded by mice and cockroaches.
In a Channel 12 interview broadcast Friday, Yehoud revealed that she attempted to end her life several times while held captive, but ultimately decided not to after her captors showed her a video of a protest in Israel where she saw her face on a poster, and she understood that people were fighting for her.
In a separate interview with the Daily Mail, Yehoud indicated that she had faced sexual assault on an almost-daily basis among widespread abuses she suffered while being held alone.
Yehoud told Channel 12 that there is a lot she is still unable to talk about, referring to her memories as being “in a sealed box.”
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