‘Dad, now you’re home’: Family says final goodbye to slain hostage Oded Lifshitz

Oded Lifshitz, one of the Nir Oz hostages who was slain in captivity, is laid to rest in the kibbutz he helped found 70 years ago.

His eldest son, Arnon Lifshitz, eulogizes him: “Dad, you’re here now, now you’re home.”

Arnon says his father always knew how to help and do for others, and was deeply connected to the kibbutz, filling every kind of job, from the chicken coop to the administration.

“The kibbutz was destroyed on October 7, people couldn’t lock their doors, others were outside, fighting against many,” he says. “Now the government must pay any price to return all those who are there. We don’t ask, we demand that.”

Lifshitz says that other released hostages from Nir Oz, like Gadi Mozes, say that that the rehabilitation of Nir Oz is the best revenge, “so that we can return to being us, a light among the nations.”