Or Ziv, 23: Travel lover and budding model with ‘sparkling eyes’

Or Ziv, 23, from Adi, was murdered by Hamas terrorists while trying to flee the Supernova music festival on October 7.

He attended the rave with a group of friends who also grew up in the Jezreel Valley, including his close friend, Ben Bernstein. They fled together when the rocket fire began and tried to hide in the forest near the highway when they realized that Hamas terrorists were opening fire on passengers, but they were both killed.

Or’s family searched for any news of him for a week before they were informed that he had been killed and his body identified.

He was buried on October 13 in Adi, days before his 24th birthday. He is survived by his mother, Sima, and sisters Dana and Liel. His father, Reuven, died of a heart attack when Or was 13, a loss his family said hit him hard.

Or was born in Romania, and was adopted by Sima and Reuven when he was six months old, according to a state eulogy, delighting his older sisters who had been begging for a new sibling. After finishing high school, he served in the IDF’s Kfir Brigade, and after his release, he spent time traveling, in particular in Europe, which he loved visiting.

Or was working at a textile import company, after a period employed installing solar panels on roofs. He was also pursuing a burgeoning modeling career. He loved to hang out with his friends and to party, his loved ones said, and was also very close to his family, sharing a joint tattoo with his sisters of a clover, and putting in plenty of babysitting hours with his nieces and nephews.

His sister, Dana, wrote on Instagram about all the things she misses about Or, from the fact that “there is nobody at work for me to annoy in the morning before I smoked a cigarette, or update me on what happened at home the day before.”

“I miss how you’d get mad at me if I said something you didn’t like and then after you’d think about things, I’d get a message saying, ‘My sister, I know everything you said was for my own good,'” she continued. “I miss your laughter, I miss our conversations, I miss everything… I miss you so much.”

Writing a month after he was killed, his sister, Liel, said, “If only we would have known, we would have hugged you a little bit more, told you a little bit more how you were the best and you were ours.”

In the weeks after Or was slain, Liel wrote, “We got a peek into the life of Or Ziv, the friend, the soldier, the student, the salesman. So many people who throughout the years who you probably already forgot came to tell us who you were to them.”

“And we were privileged too. We got to be together. A super close and united family who dealt with everything. You, who grew up with the difficulties of a preteen and didn’t always smile, but kept fighting alongside us to grow up and become a huge light, shining, optimistic and unique.”

Liel added that she was “imagining you up there sitting among the angels, with your smile and your sparkling eyes.”

Read more Those We Have Lost stories here.