‘You are home now’: Lior Rudaeff buried at Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak as family praises his bravery on Oct. 7

After a funeral procession made up of Magen David Adom riders and an ambulance donated in his name, Lior Rudaeff, emergency service volunteer and deputy security coordinator at Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, is buried at the kibbutz.

Rudaeff, 61, is survived by his wife, four children and father.

His wife, Yaffa Rudaeff, says in her eulogy that it’s not the ending she prayed for, but that Lior would have been proud of his children for battling to bring him home.

“You are home now,” says Yaffa Rudaeff. “You would have been so proud to see our children showing such strength in the struggle to bring you back.”

She addresses her husband, telling him how much their children resemble him.

“Now I say goodbye to you forever — the half of our whole, the glue of our family,” says Yaffa Rudaeff. “Thank you for 41 years together, in good times and in bad. Your journey in this world ended far too soon, and I want to ask your forgiveness — forgiveness that it took so long, and that we never truly said goodbye that morning.”

Rudaeff’s daughter, Noam Katz Rudaeff, describes some of what happened on that day as her father tried to save members of his fellow kibbutz response team and as dozens of armed terrorists closed in on him.

“The anger that it happened to you, that the state wasn’t there, that the army — which promised it would be there within minutes — wasn’t,” says Katz Rudaeff, adding that he has a new granddaughter, “sharp, just like you.”

His son, Ben Rudaeff, tells his father how much he has to share with him, about his travels to Thailand and India when he was sad throughout, about his inability to face the world.

“In what kind of world did you have to sacrifice your life like that?” says Ben Rudaeff. “In what kind of world do we bury you after two years? Who would have believed we’d have to fight to bring you back?”

He tells his father that every field shelter in the region has become a memorial site, that Lt. Hadar Goldin was finally brought home after a decade, with four more hostage bodies still held in Gaza.

Nadav Rudaeff says how much he misses his father’s voice, his scoldings, his strong hugs, his smiles and joy over his grandkids, as well as the toothpick that was often in his father’s mouth.

“We fought for you, Dad — you wouldn’t believe how far we went and what we did for you,” says Nadav Rudaeff, who was a familiar face in the two-year public struggle for the hostages. “We fought for you just as you fought for us on that cursed day. You were always the first to go out and the last to come back.”

“Today is finally for you,” adds Nadav Rudaeff. “I hope that somewhere, you’re driving a pickup truck with a dog in the back, blasting the music you love.”

Rudaeff was at first believed to be a living hostage in Gaza, but in May 2024, authorities confirmed that he was killed on October 7, and his body taken. His family held a memorial service and sat shiva, but did not hold a funeral.