After 738 days, Eitan Mor, guard at rave who helped save others, is released from Gaza

Mor’s family among the founders of the Tikva Forum, which rejected partial deals and pushed for the release of all hostages

After 738 days in captivity, Eitan Mor was released on October 13, 2025, as part of phase one of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza. This is the story of Eitan Mor’s capture:

Eitan Mor, 23 when taken hostage on October 7, 2023, was a security guard at the Supernova desert party when Hamas terrorists launched an assault, killing 344 partygoers and kidnapping dozens of others.

Mor, who lives in Jerusalem, wasn’t in touch with his parents that morning, as they’re religiously observant and don’t use phones on Shabbat.

He texted his uncle, telling him about the situation as it was building. He conveyed that he and his friends were trying to hide in “a huge, open field,” he wrote.

Mor wrote to his uncle about the armed terrorists on pickup trucks, sending a video of their hiding place. He sent his location and his uncle sent it along to a senior army official, asking repeatedly if the shooting had stopped, if security forces had arrived.

The last time Mor responded was at 10:04 a.m., although his uncle kept trying to reach him.

The final sighting of Mor was as he and a friend were bringing others to safety.

Mor had last spoken with his parents on Friday before Shabbat and didn’t tell them about the party in the desert. They didn’t know until Saturday evening what had taken place in the Gaza border communities and at the party.

Since then, Mor’s father, Tzvika Mor, who lives in Kiryat Arba outside Hebron, has told the media that he’s not interested in an exchange deal with the Palestinians if his son is being held hostage by Hamas.

Tzvika Mor, alongside a handful of like-minded family members, formed the Tikva Forum, which refused partial deals with the Hamas terrorists holding their children during the two-year war.

“We don’t want another Shalit deal,” said the elder Mor, in an interview with Channel 14, referring to the 2011 deal that exchanged soldier Gilad Shalit for 1,027 Israeli-held security prisoners. “You have to think about the greater good and make sacrifices.”