Ziv Abud is desperately hoping for a miracle on Valentine’s Day — that she’ll get word her fiancé will be freed from Gaza after 500 days in hell.
The family of Eliya Cohen went for 15 months without any message about his wellbeing, or whether he was even alive.
The first true sign of hope emerged last week when the three male Israeli hostages were released last weekend.
The Hamas exchange was brutal, and drew comparisons to Holocaust survivors for their weak and gaunt appearance.
But the captives brought news of Eliya’s condition.
“This is the first time we know he’s alive,” Ziv told The Post from her apartment in Tel Aviv that she shared with Eliya, until he was abducted by Hamas from a roadside bomb shelter during the Oct. 7 massacre near the Nova music festival.
Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami provided crucial signs of life for some 10 men whose fate was previously unknown.
They also came back with harrowing testimonies of their conditions, including Cohen’s, who was separated from them only days before their release.
Ziv learned from them that her teenage sweetheart has been chained, tortured, starved, burned, and hung by his feet – while suffering from an untreated bullet wound from the Oct. 7 attack.
Of those 10 hostages determined to be alive, only Cohen is slated for release in the fragile first phase of the ceasefire-hostage deal.
Ziv believes he could be included in Saturday’s exchange, which is expected to see three more hostages turned over after the deal nearly collapsed this week.
And she will learn whether he’s on the list on Friday — Valentine’s Day.
“He’s strong, but I don’t know how much he can handle,” Ziv cried, adding that he’s said to have lost some 45 pounds on Hamas’s starvation diet. ”This is an emergency now.”
Ziv and Eliya were hiding in a roadside bomb shelter on Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists tossed grenades and sprayed bullets inside it.
The terrorists took Eliya hostage, along with three others – including American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was executed by Hamas terrorists last August.
Ziv hid for six hours under a pile of dead bodies. Seventeen Israelis were killed in what became known as the “bunker of death.”
The recently returned hostages, who were denied access to news media in captivity, told Ziv that Eliya “thought that I was murdered in the shelter.”
Last month, the hostage deal went into effect and stipulated that 33 Israelis would be released, with a few coming out each week over the course of 42 days.
Abud said she’s been waiting on pins and needles each week awaiting to learn if Cohen is on that week’s release list.
But that phone call hasn’t happened yet.
“We wait – there is no normal day anymore.”
Ziv, who met her fiancé when they were both 14 and beginning their romance five years later, said they hadn’t been apart a single day – until October 7.
This past August, to commemorate the Jewish version of Valentine’s Day, called Tu B’Av, Ziv prepared a romantic dinner on the bustling Tel Aviv promenade.
Complete with rose petals and his favorite meal, she sat alone in a floor-length red evening dress, facing a cardboard picture of her fiancé, as tearful passerby showered her with expressions of support and love.
This Valentine’s Day, Ziv, who marked her eight-year anniversary with Eliya last week – alone – shared her feelings of both grief and hope that her beloved will be reunited with her in a matter of days.
“It feels that people have forgotten about the hostages, but since President Trump was elected, it feels like a huge push. Trump does so much to bring the hostages home — I trust him to do the right things,” she said.
“I ask him to make sure Eliya and all the hostages come back home.”
The current ceasefire nearly fell apart this week after Hamas accused Israel of violating the terms of the agreement, and claimed it wouldn’t release three hostages this Saturday as was initially planned.
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President Trump reacted swiftly — saying Israel should “let hell break out” if Hamas doesn’t release all remaining hostages by Saturday.
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu soon took up that stance.
Hamas capitulated to the demands Thursday and agreed it would resume the releases Saturday as had been initially planned, but stopped short of meeting the new demands for a total hostage release.
Israeli officials have said if the three hostages aren’t freed by noon Saturday then fighting will resume.
Ziv, who left her sales job to advocate full-time for her partner’s release, told The Post that she’s waiting desperately by the phone, anxiously awaiting news of his release in this upcoming exchange.
It’s a reunion that alternately feels ever closer, yet farther away, to envision.
“I imagine that every day. I just want to give him a big, big hug and tell him that I’m with him forever,” she said. “I will be there for him for the rest of our lives.”
