Ohad Yahalomi, 49: Park ranger who ‘knew every trail’

Ohad Yahalomi, 49, was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 and slain in captivity.

As terrorists poured into the kibbutz on the morning of the attack, Ohad decided to sit outside the family’s sealed room door with a handgun, as the door handle of the room was not locking properly.

Ohad was shot in the leg and he and his wife and three children were kidnapped by gunmen, but his wife and two of the kids ultimately. managed to run away. Ohad and his then 12-year-old son, Eitan, were separately taken hostage into Gaza.

Eitan was freed on November 27, 2023, as part of a weeklong ceasefire. Ohad’s body was returned to Israel on February 26, 2025.

Authorities later confirmed that he is believed to have been killed on January 19, 2024 – the day that his captors, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees terror group, published a video showing him wounded and declaring that he had died. The Prime Minister’s Office said he was murdered in captivity.

Ohad was laid to rest in Kibbutz Nir Oz on March 5, 2025. He is survived by his wife, Batsheva, their three children, Eitan, Yael and Liel, his mother, Esther, and his siblings Efrat and Ayala. His father, Amnon – who was wounded in a terror attack in 1991 – died in 2016.

Born and raised in southern Israel, Ohad lived in Moshav Dekel near the Egypt-Gaza border and later in the city of Arad. About 13 years before he was killed, Ohad and Batsheva settled in Nir Oz, which quickly became home.

He served in the IDF after graduating from high school and continued to be active in reserve duty for many years in the Maglan commando unit’s 6212th reserve battalion.

Ohad earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the University of Haifa’s School of Environmental Sciences, and worked in nature and conservation for his entire professional life.

In his early years, he worked as a guide at the Sde Boker field school. For the last 19 years of his life, Ohad worked for the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. He supervised the Judean Desert for the nature authority from 2006 to 2013, and in 2019, he became director of the “green patrol” in the southern region, which enforces environmental laws.

In 2018, he co-wrote a guide to Israeli scorpions published by the INPA.

In a statement, the INPA said that Ohad was “a role model for us; a man who dedicated his energy and experience to preserving nature in Israel,” and vowed that “his legacy will live on through the paths and landscapes where he worked, through everyone who knew him and learned from him.”

In a statement, the kibbutz said that Ohad “was an inseparable part of the community, always there for every question, always finding ways to connect people, always meeting everyone at eye level.”

“He was a man of the earth, who knew every trail, could identify every rustling, and fascinated kids and adults with his stories,” the Nir Oz statement added. “He devoted his life to environmental protection, education and cooperation among different communities, out of a belief that connections between people can change reality.”

At his funeral, Batsheva spoke of “16 years together — a source of strength, growth and love, years of joy and light, now extinguished. And I walk in the shadows, groping, trying to find my way forward without you.”

She called on those listening to “adopt Ohad’s way, to spread light and goodness; to strengthen and instill confidence; to lift up everyone who has fallen along the way and everyone who is fumbling in the dark. This is how we will change reality and drive out the darkness.”

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