Dror Or buried at Kibbutz Be’eri alongside wife Yonat, also killed on October 7

By Jessica Steinberg

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30 November 2025, 3:05 pm

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Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center

At Dror Or's funeral on November 30, 2025, his sons, Yahli and Noam, far left and middle, and brother, Elad Or, recite the Mourner's Kaddish (Dana Reany/Hostages Forum)

Dror Or, the hostage whose body was released to Israel last week, is buried in Kibbutz Be’eri and eulogized by his family and friends.

He is buried next to his wife, Yonat Or, who was killed on October 7, 2023. Her body was discovered several days after the Hamas terrorist attack. Two of their three teenage children were taken captive that day and released in November 2023.

Dror Or was considered a living hostage until May 2, 2024, when intelligence revealed that he was killed on October 7 and his body taken captive to Gaza.

Or’s brother, Elad Or, one of the family members at the front of the struggle to bring the hostages home, says that he will never truly understand how this tragedy could have happened to his brother and sister-in-law, how they were attacked, how his brother managed to tell his children Alma and Noam to run, and how his brother was caught by the terrorists.

“I never want to understand it,” said Or.

He relates memories from their 38 years of brotherhood — playing basketball, listening to Ehud Banai, and visiting the kibbutz with his own family.

Banai performs two songs during the funeral.

Elad Or says he will never forget or forgive “the terribly long time in which we had to beg for help and rescue from the ongoing terror of your captivity.” He thanks the civilians and soldiers who helped, and notes that the country deserves leadership that will take better care of its people and make sure that what happened to his brother’s family will never happen again.

Yuval Or, Dror Or’s father, expresses the family’s deep sadness and pain over Dror’s murder, and the family’s losses.

He says the struggle is not over, given the government’s refusal to independently investigate the disaster of October 7 and what led to it.

Dorit Or, Dror’s mother, describes his birth and upbringing in Kibbutz Re’im, his place as the middle brother, his love of basketball, and his path to becoming a chef, meeting his wife Yonat and moving to Be’eri.

She calls her son and daughter-in-law “people of freedom and light, of spirit and creativity, who knew how to dream and turn dreams into reality.”