NIRIM, Israel: Tearful crowds gathered on Wednesday for the funerals of hostages whose bodies were recovered this week from war-torn Gaza, with some mourners voicing anger that they were not saved.
“In what world must families beg, scream and cry for the return of their loved ones, alive or murdered? Bring them all back,” Esther Buchshtab said while standing in front of her son Yagev’s grave.
The Israeli military on Tuesday announced it had retrieved the remains of Yagev, 34, and five other hostages from a tunnel in Gaza’s southern area of Khan Yunis after a battle with Palestinian militants.
They were among 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack which triggered the war.
Of those, 105 are still being held hostage inside the Gaza Strip, including 34 the military says are dead.
Yagev’s widow, Rimon Kirscht, also spoke during Wednesday’s ceremony in Nirim, standing in front of his coffin draped in an Israeli flag.
“My life, I just want to say sorry. You deserved so much better,” she said.
“Thank you for teaching me. I am yours. I am here.”
The crowd quickly dispersed to attend the funeral of Avraham Munder, 79, another hostage whose body was recovered on Tuesday, in the nearby Nir Oz kibbutz.
Nir Oz was the site of one of the worst massacres on October 7 and more than 70 of its residents were taken captive.
Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett and at least two ministers from the current government attended the funeral in Nir Oz, where speeches were interspersed with songs in Hebrew to honor Munder — a music lover and amateur singer.
The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 40,223 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
Many who came to pay their respects to the dead Israeli hostages on Wednesday lamented the fact that months of negotiations have yet to yield a deal releasing the rest.
“We were promised efforts to reach an agreement,” said Nissan Kalderon, 56, whose brother Ofer Kalderon, a French-Israeli, is still held captive in Gaza.
“We really hope that the agreement will be concluded immediately, so that we can save those who are still alive and bring back the dead to bury them, because every day that passes, they die. This is the proof,” said Kalderon, wearing a T-shirt with his brother’s photograph.
Nir Oz resident Adriana Adar, whose nephew Tamir Adar’s body is still in Gaza, said she felt “despair” above anything else.
“I haven’t stopped crying for days,” she said.
“This week, we’ve been going from one funeral to another. This could have been avoided. All those who are buried now could have come back alive, and the fact that they are buried here, is not enough to comfort us.”
Anger, despair as Israelis bury hostages who died in captivity
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Anger, despair as Israelis bury hostages who died in captivity
- The Israeli military on Tuesday announced it had retrieved the remains of Yagev, 34, and five other hostages from a tunnel in Gaza’s southern area of Khan Yunis after a battle with Palestinian militants
Hundreds flee to government-held areas in north Syria ahead of possible offensive
- Many of the civilians who fled used side roads to reach government-held areas
- Men, women and children arrived in cars and pickup trucks that were packed with bags of clothes
DEIR HAFER, Syria: Scores of people carrying their belongings arrived in government-held areas in northern Syria on Friday ahead a possible attack by Syrian troops on territory held by Kurdish-led fighters east of the city of Aleppo.
Many of the civilians who fled used side roads to reach government-held areas because the main highway was blocked with barriers at a checkpoint that previously was controlled by the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, Associated Press journalists observed.
The Syrian army said late Wednesday that civilians would be able to evacuate through the “humanitarian corridor” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday. The announcement appeared to signal plans for an offensive against the SDF in the area east of Aleppo.
There were limited exchanges of fire between the two sides.
Men, women and children arrived in cars and pickup trucks that were packed with bags of clothes, mattresses and other belongings. They were met by local officials who directed them to shelters.
In other areas, people crossed canals on small boats and crossed a heavily damaged pedestrian bridge to reach the side held by government forces.
The SDF closed the main highway but about 4,000 people were still able to reach government-held areas on other roads, Syrian state TV reported.
A US military convoy arrived in Deir Hafer in the early afternoon but it was not immediately clear whether those personnel will remain. The US has good relations with both sides and has urged calm.
Inside Deir Hafer, many shops were closed and people stayed home.
“When I saw people leaving I came here,” said Umm Talal, who arrived in the government-held area with her husband and children. She added that the road appeared safe and her husband plans to return to their home.
Abu Mohammed said he came from the town of Maskana after hearing the government had opened a safe corridor, “only to be surprised when we arrived at Deir Hafer and found it closed.”
SDF fighters were preventing people from crossing through Syria’s main east-west highway and forcing them to take a side road, he said.
The tensions in the Deir Hafer area come after several days of intense clashes last week in Aleppo, previously Syria’s largest city and commercial center, that ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters from three neighborhoods north of the city that were then taken over by government forces.
The fighting broke out as negotiations stalled between Damascus and the SDF over an agreement reached in March to integrate their forces and for the central government to take control of institutions including border crossings and oil fields in the northeast.
The US special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, posted on X Friday that Washington remains in close contact with all parties in Syria, “working around the clock to lower the temperature, prevent escalation, and return to integration talks between the Syrian government and the SDF.”
The SDF for years has been the main US partner in Syria in fighting against the Daesh group, but Turkiye considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with Kurdish separatist insurgents in Turkiye.
