‘Belated justice’: After two years, hostage Yossi Sharabi laid to rest in Be’eri

Thousands of mourners gathered in Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza border on Monday to bury deceased hostage Yossi Sharabi, whose body was returned to Israel earlier this month, more than two years after terrorists kidnapped him from his home.

Sharabi, who was taken hostage to Gaza along with his daughter’s boyfriend, Ofir Engel, and a neighbor, Amit Shani — both of whom were freed in a November 2023 ceasefire deal — died as the result of an Israeli airstrike in January 2024.

His brother Eli Sharabi was kidnapped separately and released in February 2025. Eli’s wife and two daughters were murdered in the Hamas attack, as was Yossi’s nephew on his wife’s side, Idan Herman.

“Today, after more than two years of waiting, of anxiety, of uncertainty — we finally have the privilege of burying you here, at home, in the soil of Be’eri. This is not the ending we had hoped for, but it is the beginning of a belated justice,” Eli said.

He eulogized his brother as “an anchor, a man with a huge heart, with quiet devotion, a family man. A father of three daughters who was always there — with a kind word, with a smile, with a generous heart.”

“Yossi, my dear brother, our hearts are broken, but our heads are held high. Because you were granted the honor of being buried here, in the land you loved, in the heart of your community, among people who have not forgotten. We will carry on in your name, in your memory, in your path, and we promise to remember, to tell, and to love — just as you loved,” Eli said.

Yossi’s widow, Nira, lamented: “In what world should daughters have to bury their father so early? In what world should a mother have to bury her son? In what world should a woman have to bury the love of her life when there was still so much left to do?”

Nira recalled that when she met Yossi, “I remember not being able to understand how someone could have such a good heart. Over the years, as I got to know you more and more, I realized there were no hidden sides to you — only more and more of that same goodness. It wasn’t a cliché; it was the real thing.

“The plans we made together will never happen,” she said. “I go to sleep alone. I wake up alone. I reach for your warm arms that used to hold me, that used to shield all of us from the world… I ask myself — how does one fill this void? How do I gather myself again?”

She added, “I look at our daughters, and I see you in them. In each one of them, you appear in a different way, and together they complete you — the one I miss so deeply.”

Yossi’s daughter Yuval addressed her father, saying with pride that she’d realized the plans they’d spoken about before his abduction — that she completed a year of community service, helping an organization that uses surfing as a tool for therapy; that she will soon enlist in the army, in a role that she “hopes will feel significant — just like we spoke about”; and that she is already planning a world trip after she completes her service, modeled on the trip her father took when he was young.

Yuval’s boyfriend, Ofir Engel, who was kidnapped alongside Yossi on October 7, shared: “Over the two months we were together, closed in a small room, hungry, afraid, you looked after me. You shared the little bit of food we had there, so I’d be less hungry.

“We spoke about the girls with great worry and fear, because we didn’t know what happened to them. We spoke about the water, how much you loved it, how much you missed it, how much you wanted to go back and surf. Those conversations, even amid the terror, were full of love and your worry about [the girls],” he continued.

Engel recalled an incident in which “the terrorists came to us and asked us to write farewell letters to our families,” claiming they’d kill the hostages the next day. “I didn’t manage to see the letter you wrote. I’m so sorry for the words I didn’t read, that I can’t share with Nira and the girls what you wrote to them,” he said.

Thousands line streets for funeral procession

Yossi Sharabi’s body was returned to Israel on October 15, as part of a US-brokered ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

On Monday, thousands lined the funeral procession route as his body was carried from a Rishon Lezion synagogue, where family initially gathered, to Kibbutz Be’eri for burial.

Also eulogizing him at the cemetery was President Isaac Herzog, who said: “As president of Israel, in the name of the State of Israel and the entire nation, I ask of you, Yossi, of the Sharabi family, and of all Kibbutz Be’eri, forgiveness.”

“Forgive us, Yossi, for failing to save you, and for not returning you earlier. Forgive us for not managing to protect you on that cursed day. Forgive us for not standing there beside you, in the face of those human monsters. Forgive us for taking so long to return Yossi to his homeland.”

Hamas still holds the bodies of 13 of the 251 people abducted from Israel during the October 7, 2023, onslaught.