Wife of Tal Haimi waiting to bury her husband, whose body remains held in Gaza

By Jessica Steinberg

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14 October 2025, 9:10 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

Ela Haimi and her baby, Lotan, the youngest of her four children, born after her husband Tal Haimi was killed defending their kibbutz on October 7, 2023 and his body taken hostage to Gaza. (David Janovic/IDFWO)

Bereaved wife Ela Haimi says she is waiting to bury her husband, Tal Haimi, who was killed in battle with Hamas on October 7, his body taken to Gaza, as she waits to hear the identities of the four bodies being released by Hamas at 10 p.m.

“It will be a very hard evening and night, very tense,” says Haimi.

“I don’t know if one of those bodies will be my husband or not,” says Haimi, speaking in a press conference. “I’ve been waiting for this day for almost two years.”

Haimi, a mechanical engineer and Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak native like his wife, led the kibbutz’s first response team on October 7.

At first, Haimi was told her husband was a hostage, as his phone was located in Khan Younis.

In December 2023, while Haimi was relocated to an Eilat hotel with the rest of the kibbutz, the army informed her that her husband had been killed on October 7, his body taken hostage to Gaza.

On December 15, Haimi decided to hold a funeral, burying Tal’s helmet in a grave in Kibbutz Revivim and sitting shiva in the hotel, to help her three children find some sense of closure.

A few months later, her fourth child, Lotan, was born.

Now, relocated back home to Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, Haimi said she seeks real closure for herself and her four children.

“I can live with four bodies [being brought] a day when I know that all will be brought home eventually,” says Haimi. “I’m afraid Hamas will stop today, tomorrow, in a week, and will say they can’t find anyone.”

Haimi says she knew it would be difficult to find the bodies and believes that Hamas doesn’t have the desire to locate them, despite the information given to them by the IDF for the purpose of fulfilling the ceasefire conditions.

She adds that the IDF has other tools for dealing with Hamas on this issue, such as slowing the humanitarian aid, and believes that’s the only way to force Hamas to bring the bodies back to Israel, as it did with the living hostages on Monday.

“I feel betrayed by the act of Hamas and felt betrayed in the Knesset on Monday when Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana removed the sign of the hostages,” says Haimi, referring to the Knesset gathering for US President Donald Trump, celebrating the return of the living hostages. “I felt my country doesn’t see Tal anymore, but I heard today that the army is doing everything it can to push as much as possible.”

“I told the kids anything can happen, but it’s hard, this is my life, this is my reality,” says Haimi.