Former Hamas hostage Tal Shoham returned to Kibbutz Be’eri with an Austrian TV crew to tell the story of his captivity. Shoham, from the northern Israeli village of Ma’ale Tzviya, was visiting his wife’s family on Kibbutz Be’eri when Hamas militants burned the house where they were hiding, forcing them outside. Shoham, who also has Austrian citizenship, was taken along with his wife, Adi Shoham; his daughter, Yahel, 3; son, Naveh, 8; mother-in-law, Shoshan Haran; his wife’s aunt, Sharon Avigdori; and her daughter, Noam, 12. Three members of their extended family were killed during the attack. The six extended family members were freed in November 2023. His wife, Adi, is a psychologist specializing in trauma. Shoham told Puls24 the hostages were given “very little” while their captors were well fed. He also said the hostages were beaten. “First, I couldn’t imagine me living there, it was my greatest fear before we went underground. It took me three weeks just to stop feeling that the walls are closing in on me," Shoham recalls. The tunnel he was kept in consisted of four mattresses and a hole in the ground which served as a toilet. The hostage forum said Shoham volunteered with Israel’s emergency paramedic service and used to be a manager at Kibbutz Be’eri’s printing house.