‘How can you bury your child in installments?’ Ofir Tzarfati’s family slams Hamas’s ‘continuous emotional abuse’

Richelle Tzarfati, mother of murdered hostage Ofir Tzarfati, says she is forced to open her son’s grave for the third time.

Tzarfati, who was taken hostage on October 7, 2023, from the Nova and killed in captivity, had his remains recovered by the IDF in December 2023 and again in March 2024.

Additional remains from Tzarfati were released to Israel by Hamas last night.

In a press conference at the family home in Kiryat Ata, Richelle Tzarfati says she feels like the return of more remains is “continuous emotional abuse” by the terror group, saying she is forced again to bid her son farewell.

“For the third time. The third time I’ve been required to bury my Ofir,” says Tzarfati.

She describes the emotional torture, the wound that is reopened many times over.

“It’s a punch to the gut, an arrow to the heart, a wound that opens again and again,” she says.

“We thought we had closed the circle, that we were able to lay Ofir to rest, but today we discovered we never received all of him,” says Tzarfati. “I can’t grasp this. How can you bury your child in installments? How can you relive this once, and again, and again? Each time the grave is opened, my heart opens too, and another small piece of me is buried inside.”

“And what turns the pain into something unbearable is the way Hamas chooses to play with the bodies of our boys. With our pain. With videos, manipulations, and vile presentations,” she says.

Tzarfati says Hamas is lying to the world with “false presentations of ‘searches’ and ‘discoveries,’ when it is completely clear they know where most of the hostages are.”

Amid the horror, “there is also one moment of light,” which is the return of Ofir’s remains, she states. “I choose to remember Ofir not through the horrors, but through his life.”

“He was all light. A man’s man. Young, handsome, full of the joy of life, love, and laughter. A man who knew how to inspire everyone he met, who knew how to love without limit, who knew how to live honestly,” she says.

Tzarfati’s sister, Shoval Tzarfati, says Hamas carried out a cruel manipulation by returning her brother’s remains instead of one of the remaining 13 hostages, a violation of the agreement signed and approved by both sides.

“I stand here with a crown on my head, grateful for the privilege of having such a good brother. Ofir is a hero of love and light. A young man who dreamed, loved, and lived powerfully. A graduate of the Navy, an electrical engineer, a surfer, a traveler, and a beloved tennis instructor who was murdered in Hamas captivity. But his bright light continues to shine in the hearts of all of us,” she says.