“To be honest, our relationship before October 7 wasn’t so good. I didn’t want to be with him all the weekend alone. I preferred to be with his parents.”
Sapir Cohen is speaking to an audience at Chabad Belgravia. Sitting next to her is her then-boyfriend, now-fiancé, Sasha Troufanov.
On October 6, 2o23 the couple went to stay on Kibbutz Nir Oz in the south of Israel, where Sasha’s parents lived.
The next morning, terrorists stormed the kibbutz, murdering 47 people, including Sasha’s father Vitaly, and taking 76 hostages, including Sapir, Sasha, his mother Lena, his grandmother Irena, and several friends of the couple.
Sasha, 30, whose birth name is Alexander, spent 498 days captive in Gaza. On only two of them did he see another Israeli hostage. He was held in civilian homes, hospitals, and tunnels deep underground.
“I was very afraid. I was alone. I didn’t have anybody,” he says. “The only people around me were terrorists, who were really happy about the situation. I used to train a lot; I was much bigger [than I am now]. They were very happy to get me”.
On day 107 of his confinement – just two weeks after he started walking again, having been shot in both legs on October 7 – the IDF came close to finding him. He says that being able to walk saved his life. He believes that otherwise, his captors would have killed him. “I was going around with the terrorists on foot, disguised as a civilian, every single day a different place. It was 40 days of survival.”
“Then they moved me to Rafah, in February [2024]. They put me in a wooden cage that they prepared for me, like a very small succah. It was one metre by two metres. I spent two months in there”.
On day 245, when the IDF rescued Noa Argamani and three other hostages, the terrorists took him to another civilian home, this time in Khan Yunis, and sent him 30 metres down a shaft under the ground.
Sapir Cohen campaigning to bring home Sasha (photo: Getty)Getty Images
“It was a small space. Maybe a bit bigger than this stage,” he says, pointing to where he and Sapir were sitting. “It was very mouldy, very stinky, with bedbugs and cockroaches, but this wasn’t the biggest problem.
“I had two main problems. One was the darkness. I would put my hand in front of my face and couldn’t see anything. Complete darkness. The other was the silence. Complete silence. The silence of the kind that makes your ears make this beeping sound. I would hit myself against the wall just to feel alive.”
Sasha spent eight and a half months in that tunnel.
Sapir was held hostage for 55 days, with two other captives, a man in his mid-30s and a teenage girl. At first, she would replay in her head the day she was taken, and how it might have transpired differently. “I was thinking: ‘If and if and if’…,” she says. “It exploded my head. I had to think in a different way.
Sapir Cohen and Sasha Troufanov are interviewed by Rabbi Mendel Kalmenson at Chabad Belgravia (Photo: Ben Conway)[Missing Credit]
“I always believed in God, even though I had never prayed before. I said that if God decided to send me to this place, it’s because I’m supposed to be here. In my world, there is no luck. I said to God: ‘Please give me one last chance to do something meaningful with my life.’”
She took on the role of group optimist, particularly trying to support the terrified young girl. “I decided that I had a mission in this place,” she says.
“I found that I could make bad moments into funny moments. One day we were taken to the tunnels, and the girl said to me: ‘Sapir I can’t go there, I’m too scared.’ I told her that since we are in Gaza, we have to see the number one attraction – the tunnels.”
When Sapir was released from captivity in November 2023, she chose to move in with Sasha’s mother, Lena, whom Sapir by then considered her future mother-in-law. “I couldn’t see myself with a different partner,” she says.
That was despite Sasha’s reckoning that he would not make it out of Gaza alive. “After five months, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad released a video of Sasha,” recalls Sapir. “We were so excited because it was the first time we knew for sure he was alive. He mentioned me in that video, so I was very excited by that.
“After eight months, they released a second video, and Sasha didn’t mention me. When he came back from captivity, I asked him about that, and he told me: ‘Sapir, I didn’t want you to wait for someone who will never come back.’”
Unsurprisingly, Sasha’s mother, Lena – recently released from captivity, newly widowed, and with her only child held hostage – was struggling.
“She felt like she had lost everything in her life,” Sapir avers. “Sometimes, she came to me and said: ‘Sapir, I don’t want to live anymore. It’s enough for me.’
“I really wanted her to stay, so I started promising her some grandchildren – twins,” recounts Sapir, prompting laughter among the audience.
“After a few months, she came to me [again], and said that wasn’t enough. She said: ‘Say to Sasha that I love him, and please wait for him. I trust you’.”
At this point, Sapir turns away from the audience and looks at Sasha. “So, we’re having six kids,” she says. “Now, [Lena] is waiting for the results.”
Noticeable in both of their testimonies is how turning to faith helped them immeasurably during captivity.
“When I came to captivity, I didn’t have the right tools to deal with what I was going to go through,” says Sasha. “I started to reflect on my life. I thought about what led to this moment, and the people I care about. At that point, I found a lot of strength just thinking good thoughts about them, praying for them. I was praying from my heart, from my soul – not from Tehillim.
“Afterwards, I felt a lot of relief. Like my compass was recalibrated in the right direction. Without even thinking about getting out of my situation, it was just a very refreshing moment in the darkness.”
Sasha Troufanov (right) during a release ceremony in Gaza. Also being released as part of a hostage deal were Sagui Dekel-Chen (left) and Yair Horn (third from left) (Photo: Getty)AFP via Getty Images
Like Sapir, he maintained a level of morbid optimism. “Even when I was put in that cage, I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself. I could start doing physiotherapy to my leg, I could reflect about things without being bothered [by the terrorists]. I tried to figure out every single positive thing that I could.”
Sapir, meanwhile, had experienced a sort of spiritual premonition about the attack before it had even happened.
“My journey began before October 7,” she says. “Six months before, I felt that something bad would happen to me, and I didn’t know why. I went to my doctor – I had a virus, but my feelings were still so bad and so strong, like I was standing in front of a very bad situation.
“For the first time in my life, I decided to pray. I asked some religious people from my work what to do, but they didn’t know what to say for this situation. I saw on my Instagram something about a prayer which if you read it for 30 days, you will be healthy”.
After a few days, she began to reflect on what she was reciting. “I realised the words aren’t related to medicine, they’re related to war – to be saved from enemies.
“[When the terrorists were in the kibbutz], I was sure that this was the end of my life. And I just started to say my prayer over and over again. When I said it, I felt a little bit of peace inside of me.
“October 7 was day number 30, the last day that I was supposed to say my prayer.”
Nearly a year on from Sasha’s release, their lives are nowhere near back to normal – whatever that might mean. The only constant is that Sapir still says her prayer - Psalm 27 - daily.
Neither has returned to their prior employment. Sapir was a software developer and Sasha an engineer for Amazon. Like many of the released hostages, their period in captivity changed them too much to slot back into the regular lives they had led beforehand.
One thing is for sure, though; their relationship is stronger than ever, in no small part aided by the perspective that captivity gave them, says Sapir.
“[Before October 7] I felt that Sasha didn’t have an appreciation for life. All the time, he would just say how much he had bad luck. But he had everything; this person is so pretty and so clever – what is missing? I couldn’t suffer it.
“When he came back, finally he appreciated everything. He appreciated family, finally he wants kids.”
The couple will tie the knot on March 17. Turning to her fiancé, Sapir says: “I’m very happy that I waited for you all this time.”
You can follow their Sasha and Sapir’s updates on their Instagram page @sasha_and_sapir.
The JC was the media partner for this event.
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