Tears and tributes as slain Gaza hostage Yossi Sharabi buried in Kibbutz Be’eri
Hundreds gather as family, President Herzog and freed hostages bid farewell to Be’eri resident murdered in Hamas captivity
Hundreds of mourners lined the roads leading to Kibbutz Be’eri on Monday as Yossi Sharabi – murdered while held hostage in Gaza – was laid to rest nearly two years after his abduction.
Sharabi, 53, was kidnapped from his home during Hamas’s 7 October, 2023 assault and killed months later when the building in which he was being held collapsed following an Israeli airstrike nearby. His remains were returned to Israel earlier this month under the US-brokered Gaza deal.
President Isaac Herzog joined the Sharabi family, friends, and former hostages for the funeral, describing the moment as “a day of sorrow and accountability”. He said: “Dear, beloved Yossi, today we accompany you to enter your eternal rest – at last, your eternal rest – in the soil you so loved. Forgive us, Yossi, for not saving you, for not bringing you home sooner.”
Sharabi’s wife, Nira, addressed the crowd in tears. “I go to sleep alone, I wake up alone,” she said. “You were our shield, taking on everything, I couldn’t. Now I must take it on, and you’re missing so much.”
Their eldest daughter, Yuval, spoke of “finally being able to breathe” now that her father had returned home, though “not in the way I hoped”. She recalled how, while in captivity, Hamas gunmen asked her father if he approved of her marriage to her partner, former hostage Ofir Engel. “He said yes,” she said. “When I marry Ofir, I’ll do it with a calm heart, because I know I have your blessing.’
Her sister Ofir told mourners: “You waited every night in the living room until we came home, kissed us, and only then locked the door. But this time, you never came home.”
Engel, who was held with Sharabi for two months in Gaza, described him as a “source of strength in hell”. “We were shut in a small room, hungry, and terrified, and you took care of me,” he said. “You shared the little food we had and spoke of your daughters and the sea. Even in that darkness, you were full of love and hope.”
At Be’eri’s small cemetery, the Sharabi brothers, Eli and Sharon, recited Kaddish. Eli, who was freed from Hamas captivity earlier this year, said in a statement following his brother’s return: “Perhaps for me, this closure that I had dreamed of has come, but until all the fallen return home, we will not stop.”
Yossi Sharabi is survived by his wife Nira and their daughters Yuval, Ofir and Oren.
Kibbutz Be’eri – one of the hardest-hit communities in the 7 October mass-terror attack, where 101 civilians were murdered and 32 residents taken hostage – described him as “a man of generosity, humility and connection to people”.
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