For 738 days all they saw of Evyatar David were images of his torture in the bowels of Gaza but today those who love him most finally saw a picture to make them smile.
The talented musician who just went to a festival to dance when he was kidnapped by terrorists was seen on a video call to his parents moments before being freed yesterday.
It sparked a stampede at his best friends’ home in Hod HaSharon, near Tel Aviv, where the Daily Mail was invited to join over 30 of those who know him best to watch his release.
They piled in, desperate to catch the first glimpse of the 24-year-old alive since an image of him being forcibly starved and made to dig his own grave horrified the world in August.
‘There is no way to describe such a moment, it is like nothing before,’ Rinat Israeli, 54, who organised the event at her home, told me.
Her 24-year-old son Sagi is one of Evyatar’s closest friends and each day has been an unceasing torture for her family since he was kidnapped.
Their first sign of life came in February, when Hamas cruelly filmed him and his best friend Guy Gilboa-Dalal, 24, watching other hostages released, and then returned them to the tunnels.
Both spent their first weeks of captivity bound hand and foot with bags over their heads, blood dripping from their wounded limbs.
But then came perhaps the most depraved image of this entire conflict – that of the once muscular, bronzed gymnast seen skeletal and pale, all hope gone from his eyes, as he dug his own grave.
Against all the odds though he survived and, when his release was confirmed at 8am yesterday, dozens of his friends and family flocked to Ms Israeli’s home.
For more than 24 hours they sang, cheered, cried, and comforted each other through the crippling, anxious wait until, finally, he emerged.
Ms Israeli, an architect, said: ‘I was waiting for this moment for two years. When he was inside it was like I could not breathe. This is the feeling.
‘You are waiting for this moment every day. Every moment I talked to him, I sent him the sun and the wind and the love. I wished him good morning and good evening.
‘Every single moment he was in there, it is like you are living in two places. Now I can start to breathe again.’
For Israelis, they feared this day would never come but now, remarkably, every living hostage taken by Hamas on October 7 2023 has been returned.
Across the country it feels that, like Ms Israeli, finally everyone can breathe once more.
‘It’s such a heavy weight off our hearts and off our shoulders just to see him,’ said Guy Melamed, 24, student from Zippori, northern Israel.
The Mail was warned to ‘prepare your liver for a whipping’ and when we arrived at 6am yesterday most of those present had not slept.
Shots of vodka were handed out, and special bottles of red wine lined the kitchen bearing the picture of Evyatan and his friends’ slogan: ‘We are strong’.
They whooped and cheered as the Red Cross trucks arrived for the first seven hostages to be freed.
The atmosphere built with Air Force One seen touching down, before they excitedly piled around Ms Israeli when she received a call from Evyatan’s parents saying they had spoken to him.
Then local journalist Adi Nirman mentioned quietly she had received a video of the FaceTime call between them – provoking a riot as two dozen friends mobbed her to catch a glimpse.
‘Some of us have been here since we heard the news at 8am yesterday,’ Mr Melamed said. ‘We needed to be together to be here for each other.
‘We have been playing board games, talking – we went to the pub at 2am just to have a pint and come back.’
For all of them, the cruelty of Hamas made them question the release until the last moment.
‘The video of him in the tunnel – it shattered me,’ Mr Melamed said.
‘We have a group chat, and when that came out someone said: “Do not watch it.” It was too much.’
Many of those gathered did not know one another before Evyatan was taken, but grouped together in the wake of the tragedy.
They hosted a Thursday night jam session every week in Hostages Square in his honour, and formed an unbreakable bond.
There were tender moments today, as at times some would be overcome with emotion only for those around to give a reassuring look or a kind word to get them through.
Niv Cohen, 24, was one of the last to see Evyatan after travelling with him to Nova festival ‘to dance and have fun’ on October 7.
‘Everybody was in a rush, but Evyatar is a super chill guy who takes everything slow, so he took his time,’ he joked, sadly.
‘We split up because Evyatar stayed smoking. That was the last time I saw him.’
Hours later, he saw a video of his friend being led at gunpoint into Gaza. ‘I started crying,’ he said. ‘There was a vending machine and I punched it out of despair.’
Today is the first time he can begin to process what happened that day where their two friends, Ron Tazarfati and her boyfriend Idan Hermati, both 22, were killed.
For much of the outside world, October 7 is a distant memory. But because of the taking of 251 hostages Israel has been frozen, unable to move beyond it.
As we departed Ms Israeli’s home, the drinks had stopped, the cheering quieted, and for Evyatar’s friends, like the rest of the country, their first steps towards recovery had, finally, begun.
