Daughter of hostage whose body was retrieved from Gaza: ‘We are grateful we can say goodbye properly’

The daughter of Itzik Gelernter, whose body was retrieved from Gaza last week in a military operation, says on the morning of his funeral that she is grateful for the opportunity to say goodbye.

“We are grateful for the opportunity to say goodbye properly. There is comfort in that,” Yarden Pivko tells Radio 103FM, according to the Walla news site. “This is the first time I have said ‘good morning’ since October 7, specifically on the day of my father’s funeral, because the lack of knowledge [about him] has been too heavy a weight to walk around with and live with.”

“We pray that that [he was killed] on October 7 and that he did not suffer [in Gaza] in the way that we thought he might since he was kidnapped. What will bring peace to my father’s soul and our souls is to pray that this is what happened, and hope that he did not suffer much,” she says.

On Friday, the military announced that it had recovered the bodies of Gelerenter, Amit Buskila, and Shani Louk.

The three were at the Supernova music festival near Re’im on the morning of the Hamas-led October 7 onslaught, where they then fled to the Mefalsim area. IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said they were killed there by Hamas terrorists, and their bodies were then kidnapped to Gaza.

A day later, the Israel Defense Forces said it had returned the body of Ron Benjamin to Israel in the same operation. He was killed near Kibbutz Mefalsim on the day of the attack. The Rehovot resident had been in the south for a bike ride.