^{Credit: HAIM ZACH/GPO, MAAYAN TOAF/GPO}

Three more hostages were released today. Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy meet with families. One nightmare has ended and an even bigger one has begun. Sharabi didn’t know wife, 2 daughters and brother were murdered on Oct. 7, and Levy did not know that his wife had the same tragic fate.

Sharabi and Levy are Jews from Portuguese origin. Their nationality applications dragged on at the registry office for a long time and only recently did the government inform their families that their passports would soon arrive. Although this last step has not yet been formally carried out, the efforts of the Portuguese government over the last three weeks may have contributed to these releases taking place today.

Or Levy, 34, had his Sephardic origins recognized by the Jewish community of Porto, since his paternal grandparents spoke Ladino and belonged to a traditional Sephardic family from Istanbul in Turkey, which made its way to Israel in the 20th century. His uncle Moshe Levy is a Portuguese citizen. 

Eli Sharabi, 55, had his Sephardic origins recognized by the Jewish community of Porto, as he belongs to a traditional Sephardic family from Morocco, with the surname Turgeman on his father's side, and Sharabi, on his mother's side. Some members of this family returned to Portugal from Morocco and Gibraltar in the 19th and 20th centuries, and are now buried in the Jewish cemetery in Lisbon.

Eli's brother, Yossi Sharabi, who was the same age, had already obtained Portuguese nationality when he was kidnapped and when his tragic death was confirmed.

What led to the delay in issuing the passports?

After the attacks of October 7, the families of the two hostages urgently asked the Portuguese government, then led by the Socialist Party, to quickly grant Portuguese nationality to their loved ones. However, that government did nothing. The registrar wanted proof that Eli and Or had made trips to Portugal throughout their lives or that they had inheritances from the time of the Inquisition.

Why this requirement from the register office?

The story began in May 2020, when the parliamentary group of the socialist party began to shout against alleged "passports of convenience" for people exempted by law from living in Portugal. Following this, in November 2021, the government produced a proposed decree that required trips to Portugal and goods from the time of the Inquisition. In December the same government actually approved the decree, five days after a "fake news story" that had been planted in a newspaper. That was how unconstitutional demands not enshrined in parliamentary law but in government decree, were imposed on people betrayed by the socialist coup.

Despite the delays

Over the past three weeks, the current government's efforts to grant nationality to two of the hostages released today (Or and Eli) may have contributed to their release, although their families have not received any official notification of this concession to date.

Hostages were released from Hamas captivity in a critical condition

Although there are still no detailed reports on the hostages' health conditions, it is clear that they are extremely weakened. The three men are severely underweight, leading to comparisons with the condition of Jews at the end of the Holocaust.

"The shocking images that we have seen today will not go unaddressed," the Prime Minister Office stated.