Israel begins burying its dead hostages returned by Hamas

JERUSALEM – Two days after Israel rejoiced over the return of 20 living hostages from the Gaza Strip, Oct 15 was a day of funerals for the first of those whose remains were sent back from the enclave this week under the terms of a fragile ceasefire deal.

Thousands of mourners crammed the narrow pathways between rows of uniform stone graves in the military cemetery on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl. They had come for the burial, after sunset, of captain Daniel Peretz, a tank commander killed in battle Oct 7, 2023, during the

Hamas-led attack that ignited the two-year war in Gaza

.

Earlier on Oct 15, Mr Guy Iluz, a sound technician who was shot and taken hostage while fleeing a music festival during the October 2023 attack, was laid to rest in his hometown, Ra’anana, in central Israel.

It has been a long goodbye for Mr Peretz’s family.

The soldier, who was 22, was killed defending the border with his crew against waves of gunmen from Gaza. One member of the four-man crew was found dead afterward, but the three others, including Mr Peretz, were gone.

Months later, in March 2024, the Peretz family received notification from the military that Mr Peretz was dead and that his body was in Gaza. The family held a partial funeral for him then, burying his blood-soaked uniform.

On the night of Oct 15, two days after his remains were returned, Mr Peretz’s journey was finally over.

During the eulogies, the Peretz family was surrounded by the parents of other members of the tank crew and one crew member himself, Mr Matan Angrest.

Mr Angrest survived the battle and two years of captivity in Gaza. He was one of the 20 hostages who

returned alive on Oct 13

. Visibly weak and pale, he had insisted on leaving the hospital where he has been recuperating to attend the funeral.

“It was important for me to salute and pay final respects to my commander Daniel, of blessed memory, who led our heroic battle on that fateful Saturday,” Mr Angrest said in an emotional eulogy.

But he said “the circle would only be complete” with the return of the remains of the fourth crew member, Mr Itay Chen, so he too could be “laid to rest in Israeli soil, together with all the fallen”.

The Peretz family came to Israel from South Africa when Mr Peretz was 13.

Mr Peretz’s father, Rabbi Doron Peretz, spoke warmly in his eulogy of the camaraderie that now binds the parents of the tank crew members and many others touched by the assault of October 2023 and by the war.

Looking out at the multitude of mourners, he said: “We are not a small country. We are a large family.”

Hamas militants in Gaza have handed over the remains of 10 people since Oct 13, out of a total of 28 bodies that the Israeli government said were in Gaza when the ceasefire was reached.

But Hamas’ military wing said on the night of Oct 15 that it had handed over all of the remains of hostages that it had been able to recover without additional equipment, potentially

putting the ceasefire at risk

.

The ceremonies for Mr Iluz, who was 26, began with a procession from a funeral home in Rishon Lezion. About 100 people carrying flags walked through the streets solemnly, in silence, behind a van carrying the coffin until it left town on its way to Ra’anana.

His father, Mr Michel Iluz, eulogised him by the graveside, addressing him as “my Guyshuk”.

He described his son being captured by gunmen from Gaza during the Oct 7 attack. They ordered the young man to turn around and shot him twice in the back, “just for the pleasure of it”, he said,

Mr Guy Iluz was then abducted, wounded but alive, and hospitalised in Gaza. The Israeli military later said he had succumbed to his wounds after not receiving proper medical care there.

One released hostage, Ms Maya Regev, attended the funeral on Oct 15 and recounted encountering Mr Iluz in the hospital in Gaza. She was with him when he died.

“You suffered a week alone until I arrived,” she wrote a day earlier on social media, after his body had been returned and identified.

“We spoke about the most simple and pure things in the darkest and most horrific place that man has known,” she said.

Mr Michel Iluz thanked Ms Regev and said his son had received a gift by having Ms Regev by his side in his final moments. Now, he said, his son was back in the land he loved.

“Rest,” he told him, “after a journey of two years in worlds unknown to us.” NYTIMES