‘Forgive us for not protecting you’: Herzog eulogizes Tamir Adar at Nir Oz funeral

President Isaac Herzog eulogizes Kibbutz Nir Oz member Tamir Adar, whose body was returned to Israel on Tuesday night and is being buried at Kibbutz Nir Oz.

Adar was killed while battling Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, and his body was taken captive to Gaza. Herzog eulogizes him as a farmer, educator and kibbutz member who loved people and nature.

“Alongside this unfathomable sorrow, there is also a sense of upright pride — of admiration and honor for the member of the kibbutz security squad who charged forward and fought with courage and self-sacrifice in the face of the enemy that came in hordes that cursed day — to slaughter, torture, and kidnap the people of Kibbutz Nir Oz,” says Herzog. “Tamir went out to defend his home, quite literally. He and his comrades were there alone.”

The president recalls Adar’s last words to his wife, Hadas: “You don’t open the door to anyone, even if it’s me asking you to open it.”

Says Herzog, “He understood exactly what was happening.”

Herzog says the family — Yaffa Adar, Tamir’s grandmother who was taken hostage and released; Hadas, Adar’s widow; Adar’s father, Moshe, and mother, Yael — “led a heroic Israeli and international struggle.”

“Since that dreadful day — October 7 — in our many meetings with your family and with the Nir Oz community, we’ve heard again and again of the courage of the security squad fighters, you among them — and each time, we were moved and filled with pride anew,” says Herzog to Tamir Adar.

“I stand here — as president of the State of Israel — and in my mouth is an appeal for forgiveness,” he says. “Forgive us — for you and your comrades in the security squad were left alone to face those human monsters. Forgive us — that only after more than two years are we bringing you home, to your kibbutz. And forgive us — all of you, the men and women of the extraordinary Nir Oz — whom we have seen since that first day, in your grief and in your strength. Forgive us for not protecting you and your loved ones that bitter, fateful day.”

Herzog mentions his discussion yesterday with US Vice President JD Vance about doing everything necessary to bring to proper burial all of the hostages whose bodies are still being held in Gaza.

“He reaffirmed this sacred commitment, and also emphasized President Trump’s and his team’s determination to bring about a dramatic change in our region and on our borders — so that Nir Oz and all the residents of the Gaza border area will finally know peace, security and a changed reality, also for the people of Gaza,” says Herzog.