Ziv Abud’s eyes are red raw from exhaustion and tears. Happy tears and sad tears. For 16 months she has travelled around the world meeting prime ministers, journalists and anyone who would listen, in an effort to get her boyfriend returned home from Gaza, without even knowing if he was still alive.

Earlier this week she heard the news she had long been dreaming of: her beloved Eliya Cohen is alive. This week marks eight years since they became a couple. Since Cohen’s abduction by Hamas, his mother has told Abud that he was planning to propose on their next holiday to Thailand, and she calls Cohen her fiancé.

But, along with the new knowledge that Cohen is alive, Abud says in an interview over Zoom, came the horror of learning that he is being starved and tortured and has been shackled in an airless tunnel, injured, for almost his entire time in captivity.