Inside one man’s struggle to get his cousin’s body, taken on Oct. 7, back from Gaza
Tal Haimi’s remains are still being held by terrorists. Udi Goren has stepped up to represent the family as they beg for all the hostages, living and dead, to be returned home
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
Udi Goren raised his well-worn Canon and aimed it over the still waters of the Hod Hasharon Eco Park, training his lens on a kingfisher taking wing in the hazy late afternoon sun.
Goren saw something of himself in the figure of the long-beaked bird hovering over the man-made pond. Homing in on a fish in the still waters below, it gracefully dove down toward its prey with little fanfare.
It was reminiscent of what Goren, 43, has been doing for the last 14 months as he helps lead fellow family members of hostages in their struggle to see their loved ones again: watching, waiting and swooping in quietly but confidently anytime an opportunity arises.
Goren’s cousin, Tal Haimi, was abducted by invading terrorists and taken to the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, while fighting to defend his hometown kibbutz of Nir Yitzhak. For the first few months, Haimi’s family held out hope that he was still alive, but the Israel Defense Forces confirmed last December that he had been killed on the morning of the attack, which saw some 1,200 people slaughtered in southern Israel and 251 kidnapped to the Gaza Strip. It is his body that is being held in Gaza.
Since then, Goren, who works as a travel photographer, has spent all of his time on the struggle to bring the hostages — living and dead — home to Israel, and he’s waiting for a Israel to strike a deal with the Hamas terror group, which led the terror assault.
He organizes the hostage families’ presence at the Knesset, as they sit in on Knesset committee meetings, give speeches and speak to Knesset members, making sure that the hostages remain visible in the government.
“We create a media stir, we get the hostages into the news because the politicians can’t look away from us,” said Goren. “It makes a difference because we’re present all the time. They have to pay attention to us. You can’t look away from us and that’s worth the effort.”
Now Goren will join the steering committee of six hostage family members who direct the efforts of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the ad hoc organization that came together after October 7 to support and lead the struggle for the hostages.
The six family representatives have been voted in twice since the board was formed several months after the forum’s establishment.
“The board is thought of as a place of influence, to discuss campaigns and budgets,” he said. “It’s a position of significance.”
Goren said not many hostage family members are vying for the seats, as the families are tired and despairing.
But it’s where decisions are made, with an ongoing conversation conducted between the elected family members and paid staffers of the forum as to how best to navigate this situation.
On December 8, Goren and six other hostage family members met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, trying to get answers on the likelihood of an upcoming hostage deal.
At the time, Netanyahu also met separately with the Tikva Forum, which represents a hawkish minority who have been significantly more supportive of the government’s handling of the war than the main forum.
“We’re trying to get to the first stages of a deal and to get a few people out,” said Goren. “I understand realistically, that with this government, with this prime minister, that more than that won’t happen — that was made very clear to us. It doesn’t matter what I think about it, it’s terrible and sad and that’s the situation.”
Goren doesn’t have much hope that any current negotiations will bring his cousin’s body back to Israel and assumes that just a few hostages will be released home to Israel, if any.
It’s all a far cry from his original work as a professional volleyball player (he quit in his early 20s after a back injury) and then as a travel guide. But, calm, collected and charismatic, and bearing more than a passing similarity to his cousin, Goren can speak to anyone — Knesset members, the prime minister, or distraught hostage family members.
“I got thrown into the water, but that’s okay with me,” said Goren, squinting through his camera viewfinder at the kingfisher on a recent Tuesday afternoon. “I’ve known that I want to do more in Israeli society to make this country a better place — and here I am.”
Goren’s cousin, Haimi, left behind his pregnant wife, Ela, and three children, 10-year-old twins and a 7-year-old. Ela gave birth to her fourth child, a boy, in August.
In the wake of the tragedy, it was Goren, a second cousin, who stepped up for this family and became their representative in the struggle to bring Haimi’s body home for burial.
“I was far enough from this as a second cousin that I could be a part of it,” said Goren. “I could be a part of this struggle.”
They’re relatives, and not all that distant.
Goren and Haimi were born three months apart and are second cousins on two sides of Goren’s mother’s side of the family. Goren’s maternal uncle, a founder of the kibbutz, was Haimi’s grandfather who met his future wife, by chance a cousin of Goren’s grandfather, at Goren’s grandparents’ wedding.
Most of Haimi’s family stayed on the kibbutz. Goren was raised in Hod Hasharon, not far from this Eco Park, which wasn’t there when he was growing up.
But Nir Yitzhak was the place where his great-grandparents and grandparents lived, along with his aunts, uncles and cousins. It was the center of Goren’s childhood.
“I loved being there,” said Goren. “My great-grandparents always had this bowl of candies on the wooden coffee table, and there was a tree outside that I would climb, and the animal corner, and a cousin my age, and the kibbutz dining room, that was always fun.”
The kibbutz was where his family would spend holidays and weekends. More recently, Goren would visit his Haimi cousins, Tal and his sister Or, and their families — a fourth generation on the kibbutz raising kids of their own.
He visited there with his family in April 2023, six months before October 7, when they frolicked in the kibbutz’s flower fields and ate dinner with the family.
On the morning of October 7, Goren, his wife and young daughter were at home in Pardes Hanna, a town sandwiched in between Caesarea and Hadera, a two-and-a-half hour ride from Nir Yitzhak, when they saw the news about the Hamas attack in Sderot.
“I thought it was fake, I thought, ‘Why in the world would there be a Hamas pickup truck in the middle of Sderot,'” said Goren.
His mother was in touch on WhatsApp with his cousins who were all in their sealed rooms. Goren’s cousin, Haimi, along with Oren Goldin, the brother-in-law of Haimi’s sister, Or, were both outside fighting the Hamas terrorists as part of the kibbutz emergency squad.
At some point, the family stopped answering the text messages. They didn’t know it at the time, but both men had been killed, their bodies taken to Gaza. Goldin’s body was retrieved by the IDF in July, while Haimi’s body is still being held along with that of Lior Rudaeff, another member of the kibbutz response team. In all, six members of the team were killed that day.
Five members of one family were also taken hostage on October 7, with Gabriela Leimberg, Mia Leimberg and Clara Marman released at the end of November 2024 and Fernando Marman and Luis Har rescued by IDF forces in February 2024.
Ela Haimi and her children were evacuated with the rest of the kibbutz the next day to Kibbutz Eilot and then to Kibbutz Mashabei Sade in the Negev, where they’ve remained until now.
On October 7, Goren was sure that other Hamas terror cells had infiltrated Israel and would continue the attack. He also felt certain that Hamas terror cells in the nearby area of Wadi Ara, within Israel’s Green Line but close to the West Bank, would join in and that Hezbollah in Lebanon would attack at some point. While there were no Hamas attacks in central or northern Israel, Hezbollah would indeed begin near-daily missile fire at Israel’s north the next day, on October 8.
The invasion wasn’t exactly a surprise for Goren. His Nir Yitzhak family members had been talking about an attack of this type for many years, given the steady increase of rocket attacks and infiltrations from Gaza.
Goren didn’t feel he could protect his wife and daughter, and by midday had booked tickets — first to Greece, and then, when that plan fell through, to Cyprus, where they planned to wait out the situation.
They ended up staying in Larnaca, Cyprus, for a month, but within days, Goren knew his cousin was considered a hostage and began speaking with the international media, explaining what had unfolded in his family’s kibbutz.
By November, Goren was back in Israel, volunteering with the media efforts of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum and taking a more public role in the Knesset work.
“I got thrown into the deep water,” he said.
The forum’s Knesset headquarters is a table in the hallway sandwiched between two cafeterias, a kind of ad hoc base for heading to committee meetings and discussions with Knesset members.
With his appointment to the forum board, Goren is leaving the Knesset work and will have to spend time earning money with photography work, as some of the grants and paid opportunities for forum volunteers and staff have petered out.
“I’ll stretch myself again,” said Goren. “What people haven’t realized is that this is an ongoing situation. It’s a hostage situation and we don’t know when it will end. I just want to bury my cousin and bring the rest of the hostages home.”
