Elkana Bohbot was one of the organizers behind the Nova Music Festival in Re’im, the same music festival where 347 people were murdered by invading terrorists on October 7, 2023. Terrorists were filmed beating and abducting Bohbot to Gaza, where he has remained a hostage for over two years - now, he is finally set to be released back to his wife Rivka and 5-year-old son Ram.
Among the massacre’s victims were Bohbot’s childhood friends and fellow rave organizers Michael and Osher Vaknin, according to the Agence France-Presse.
The 36-year-old Colombian-Israeli from Mevasseret Tzion near Jerusalem had planned to open an ice cream store before his abduction, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency. He enjoyed spending time with his wife, who immigrated to Israel only nine years ago, and their young son.
Elkana Bohbot's suffering in Hamas captivity
Rivka has stressed that he should have been released as part of previous hostage deals with the terrorist group due to his health issues, asthma diagnosis and his son’s need for his father.
"Elkana is asthmatic, in the video of his abduction you can see that he was beaten in the face and that his nose is broken. And he's in a tunnel. This automatically turns him into a humanitarian medical condition," Elkana's brother Yaakov told a Keshet Bet program in January.
Released hostages have confirmed that Bohbot is living in inhumane conditions, chained, starved and isolated, Rivka told the World Jewish Congress in June.
His family confirmed, based on testimonies by released hostages, that he was not receiving treatment for a skin disease he had developed in Hamas's tunnels and he had been made to sleep on a damp, mould-covered sheet.
Despite not being a native Hebrew speaker, Rivka has advocated for Bohbot throughout his captivity, even seeing him granted Colombian citizenship and pushing the country’s anti-Israel president to take up his cause.
While multiple signs of life have been received from Bohbot, the latest in a Hamas propaganda video released in May, his family have expressed significant concern for his welfare.
Yosef Chaim Ohana, a fellow hostage who appeared with Bohbot in videos released by the Gazan terror group, claimed in one video that Bohbot had attempted to harm himself.
Bohbot’s family said after the video was released that he appeared to be in “poor condition, having lost a significant amount of weight due to persistent starvation.”
“He suffers from skin and breathing problems in addition to being asthmatic, and has not seen daylight for almost a year and a half,” the family said.
Rivka stressed that the emotional anguish she could see on Bohbot’s face was unlike the man she knew, who had only cried twice in the time she had known him - when Ram was born and when his grandmother died.
“His motto is 'men don't cry.' And in the video, he's almost falling apart," she said.
Rivka added that he looked physically unwell. "It's possible that the significantly low amount of protein in the body causes him to swell or to have a very serious infection in the body and skin, so the captors brought steroids, or the stress, he looks very, very nervous,” she said.