Return of last Nir Oz hostage’s remains brings closure to ‘locus of disaster’

With the return of deceased hostage Amiran Cooper’s remains on Thursday, all 76 people abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, have been released from Gaza.

The 400-strong kibbutz, about a quarter of whose members were abducted or murdered, announced on social media that “755 days after the massacre, there are no more hostages from Nir Oz in captivity in Gaza.”

“On October 7, in hours of debacle, 76 people were snatched from Nir Oz and our home became a locus of disaster,” said the kibbutz, which the IDF reached only 40 minutes after the invading terrorists left. “Since then, the Nir Oz community has lived that horrible day, and struggled for the return of all the hostages.”

“Now, with the return of the final hostage from the kibbutz, we can start processing, recuperating and grieving our 65 loved ones who will not return, 14 of whom were abducted alive and murdered in captivity,” the kibbutz said.

“Alongside our painful closure, there are still 11 families waiting for their loved ones,” said the kibbutz, vowing to work with the families of the slain hostages still in Gaza “to bring everyone home, until the last hostage.”

The hostages and dead from Nir Oz, which is located about a mile from the Gaza border, included multiple generations of families, some of whom were killed or abducted by different terror organizations.

Among the Nir Oz members killed in captivity was the youngest hostage, one-year-old baby boy Kfir Bibas, who was abducted and slain alongside his mother Shiri and brother Ariel, 4. Father Yarden Bibas was released in February as part of the previous Gaza ceasefire.

More than 500 terrorists — about a tenth of those who invaded Israel in the October 7 massacre — entered all but six homes in the community of around 100 houses, setting fires and causing heavy damage, during the onslaught that sparked the Gaza war.

The surviving members of the community were relocated to the Karmei Gat neighborhood of Kiryat Gat, as Nir Oz undergoes a long reconstruction process.

Cooper, 84, was abducted from his home in Nir Oz, one of 67 community members to be kidnapped alive. The IDF assessed he had been murdered in captivity in February 2024, and confirmed his death in June that year.

Cooper’s remains, and those of hostage Sahar Baruch of Kibbutz Be’eri, were returned to Israel on Thursday as part of the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire.

Eleven deceased hostages’ bodies remain in Gaza, including the body of a soldier killed fighting in the 2014 Gaza war and ten hostages abducted on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages. Hamas has so far returned 17 slain hostages’ bodies as part of the hostage deal.

Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.