Just-released Hostage Attends Funeral of Fellow Soldier, Whose Body Was Among Few Returned From Gaza

JERUSALEM (AP) — Two hostages released by Hamas were reunited Wednesday in a Jerusalem cemetery for a final goodbye.

Surrounded by hundreds of mourners, Matan Angrest, who had returned to Israel just two days earlier, stood before the freshly dug grave cradling his 22-year-old commander, Capt. Daniel Peretz, and paid his respects. He prayed for more to make it home, including Sgt. Itay Chen — another member of their unit whose body is still held in Gaza.

“It's the least I can do for Daniel and the team that fought with me,” said Angrest, 22, his voice strong despite his pallor and evident weakness. “I’m sure that they are still guarding me from heaven.”

Angrest, Peretz and Chen were serving on a tank crew when they were taken during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023; militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 captives that day.

“I wish he could come back. I’m ready to go to Gaza to bring him back,” Angrest said of Chen.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Hamas is supposed to return all 28 of the deceased hostages’ bodies held in Gaza, but only 10 bodies were released as of early Thursday. One was determined not to be a hostage’s.

That left some families in the devastating limbo they have endured for more than two years, unable to give their loved ones the proper burial that in Judaism is an essential covenant with God, the deceased and the survivors.

“This is our obligation to God, we take the body and return it to the land,” said Rabbi Benny Lau, a friend of the Peretz family. “The soul belongs to God and returns to God, but the body is our responsibility.”

The spiritual importance of burial and mourning

The three largest monotheistic religions — Christianity, Islam and Judaism — teach that a person’s soul continues to exist after being separated from the body by death. But in Judaism and Islam, there are also specific teachings that the body needs to be left as intact as possible and buried as quickly as possible, with ritual cleansing and prayers.

“The idea of respecting the dead is intrinsic to the Jewish life cycle,” explained Sharon Laufer, who has volunteered as part of Jewish burial societies, for decades, and is a reserve soldier in a special unit that identifies and prepares bodies of fallen soldiers for burial. “Until the body is put in the ground, the soul is not complete, and that’s why it’s so important to us.”

In normal circumstances, that means funerals are held within a day. In the case of the Jewish hostages, it translates into the ongoing struggle — involving government negotiators and family prayers — to bring everyone's remains back.

“We cannot close that chapter of these two years without returning all of them,” Lau said.

Many families rejoiced with the rest of the country in the return of the living hostages on Monday, but felt betrayed by those who said the crisis was over and that the ubiquitous yellow ribbons and hostage posters could be taken down.

Itay Chen was 19 when he was abducted on Oct. 7 while doing mandatory military service. Chen was on duty because he had switched weekends with another soldier so he could attend his brother’s bar mitzvah.

More than two years later, his body remains missing.

“It’s a bizarre feeling where you start the day anticipating to get the worst phone call that you will in your lifetime, and then feel disappointed when you do not get that phone call,” said his father, Ruby Chen.

Alongside dozens of people, Shlomit Grouda stood on bridge in Tel Aviv to watch a convoy drive to the cemetery for the funeral of Guy Illouz, who was abducted from a music festival and was also buried on Wednesday.

“I fought for them to come home, and as I was happy for the ones who came back alive, it’s now time to bow our head for those who didn’t,” she said.

A grave with only a helmet and a family’s agonizing wait continues

Ela Haimi watched her husband, Tal Haimi, 41, leave the saferoom where they were sheltering with their three children to go defend their kibbutz as Hamas-led militants stormed it on Oct. 7.

Later that day came the call that his phone was pinging in Khan Younis, Gaza. She took it as good news — he had been taken but was still close to home, she explained to the children, showing them a map.

Two months later, the Israeli military told her they believed he had been killed in the attack and his body taken to Gaza.

After two consecutive nights when Tal wasn’t included among the returned bodies this week, Haimi said it no longer matters to her how long it takes — as long as he can be buried at his kibbutz eventually.

“I think he deserves this honor. He went out first, he went knowing I was alone with the kids among terrorists, to protect us. And he did,” Haimi said from her home in Nir Yitzhak. She’s returned there only this summer with the children — including one born seven months after his father was killed.

She did hold a funeral and went through the prescribed seven-day shiva mourning period in 2023. But the temporary grave only holds Tal’s helmet.

“The kids know he left, and they don’t know where he is,” she added.

After burial, the mourning — and healing — can begin

Rabbis and mental health experts say it's hard for families to find closure until they can bury their loved ones.

“We need to give them the time and the possibility to move from the terrible uncertainty to learning to live with the reality that the person is no longer there,” said Rabbi Mijael Even David. His synagogue in Be’er Sheva has celebrated funerals for victims of the attack in nearby kibbutzim as well as for soldiers killed in the war.

Judaism prescribes several periods of mourning after the burial, from the seven-day shiva where family members are expected to stay home and refrain from all regular routines to the one-month anniversary and beyond.

These rituals bring spiritual benefits both to the dead and the living relatives — and psychological ones, too.

Only when all the hostages are back can their families and the whole country begin to heal from observed symptoms of “traumatic grief,” said Dr. Einat Yehene, a rehabilitation psychologist with the Hostages Families Forum.

In her eulogy at Peretz’s funeral, his sister Adina Peretz said that standing by his grave carried more pain than she thought possible. But there was also some peace in being closer to her brother than she had been for two years.

“You can finally rest in the Holy Land,” she said.

Closing the three-hour service where speakers ranged from Peretz’s grandmother to Israel’s president, Shelley Peretz said the fact that her son had finally crossed back into Israel — on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, the same as on the day he was taken — made all the difference.

“We have you home now where you belong,” she said before a gun salute echoed in the late night.

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Lidman reported from Tel Aviv. Associated Press journalist Sam Mednick contributed from Netanya, Israel and Moshe Edri contributed from Jerusalem.

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