Kibbutz Be’eri says resident Dror Or was killed on Oct. 7, body being held in Gaza
Southern community attacked by Hamas confirms Or, a chef and cheesemaker, was murdered along with wife Yonat; 2 of their 3 children were taken hostage, freed in November truce deal
Close to seven months after October 7, Kibbutz Be’eri announced Thursday that resident Dror Or was murdered during the Hamas-led terror onslaught and that his body was being held in Gaza. He had been designated as a hostage to date.
Such announcements typically come after the IDF obtains additional forensics leading to the determination of a hostage’s death.
Or, 49, was previously believed to have been taken hostage alive, as were two of his children, Noam, 17 and Alma, 13, by Hamas terrorists who attacked their home in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7.
The family was forced out of their safe room as terrorists set the house on fire. A neighbor saw the terrorists grabbing and taking members of the family hostage.
Days later, the body of Yonat Or, Dror’s wife and mother of their three children, was found.
17-year-old Noam and 13-year-old Alma Or were released on November 25 as part of a temporary ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar and the United States between Hamas and Israel.
Noam and Alma’s older brother, Yahli, and their dog, Nella, survived. Yahli Or is volunteering in a year of national service in the north, and wasn’t home on October 7.
Dror Or was a chef and cheesemaker in the Be’eri Dairy, an award-winning artisanal cheese-making operation, founded in 1991 at the kibbutz.
His wife Yonat Or, was also an entrepreneur who created Ayuna, her own carpentry and furniture line in Be’eri.
The announcement from Kibbutz Be’eri came as Israel waited for Hamas to formally respond to the latest offer for a hostage and truce deal, which an Israeli official told The Times of Israel that the country’s leadership assumes the terror group will reject.
Multiple reports have indicated that Israel’s offer would see at least 33 civilian and sick hostages released in the first phase, followed by later stages that would establish a sustainable calm and possible full withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces troops.
The first stage of the deal, to last 40 days, reportedly involves a gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from parts of the Strip to allow the movement of humanitarian aid and the return of civilians to their homes.
The deal would reportedly entail Israel releasing many hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners, including terror convicts.
Even if Hamas accepts the deal unconditionally, it isn’t clear whether Israel will approve it. Far-right coalition parties have repeatedly slammed it as surrendering to the terror group’s demands and as an abandonment of the initial war goal of eliminating Hamas’s governing capabilities in Gaza, and they have openly threatened to topple the government if it is approved.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, in which some 1,200 people were murdered in Israel and 253 were taken hostage, mostly civilians, amid acts of horrific brutality.
It is believed that 129 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Three hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 12 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.
One more person has been listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.
Hamas has also been holding the bodies of fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin since 2014, as well as two Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who are both thought to be alive after entering the Strip of their own accord in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
