‘She was killed and left there’: Inbar Haiman’s family demands right to bury her

Inbar Haiman arrived at the Nova desert rave at 3 a.m. on October 7, 2023, in an official capacity. She was there as a “helper,” enlisted by organizers to assist partygoers who had gotten too drunk or high, and who were in distress.

When Hamas launched its attack at 6:30 a.m., Haiman first hid under the main stage, texting her boyfriend and calling her brother to tell them what was happening, and then tried to escape in her car before heading out again on foot.

Along the way, she helped a woman who was having trouble running while trying to evade a pair of terrorists chasing them on a motorcycle.

They caught up with Haiman, but she refused to be taken captive and fought back, until they shot her. The scene was witnessed by two other survivors of the rave who were hiding and saw the terrorists’ bloody hands as they placed her body on the motorcycle and drove her off to Gaza.

“They sang and danced around her,” said Haiman’s aunt Hannah Cohen, who eventually saw parts of a Hamas video of her niece being taken.

Now, Cohen told The Times of Israel, “Inbar is the only woman left in captivity.”

“She was killed and she was left there, and I demand that she be brought home. The government has abandoned her there.”

In the chaos of October 7 and its aftermath, it was not immediately known that Haiman had been killed. In fact, she was considered a living hostage until December 21, 2023, when the army assessed that she was not alive.

When the family was informed, her parents and only brother found it almost impossible to go on. They had no body to bury, no funeral or grave, no seven days to mourn her, as per custom.

“The mind plays tricks when there’s no closure; it sends a person to all kinds of places,” said Cohen, who is the sister of Haiman’s father. “Inbar’s parents won’t get to see her marry, but they should be able to bury her in the Land of Israel. Her mother needs a grave to go to, to speak to her daughter, to light a candle when she needs to.”

In the meantime, said Cohen, she supports her brother and sister-in-law by leading the fight for her niece, while the parents focus primarily on caring for their remaining son, who has struggled deeply following his sister’s death and captivity.

“We are all victims of this tragedy,” she said. “That’s their life. One daughter is underground in Gaza, and one son can’t function, and their life revolves around him.”

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are still holding 48 hostages. Some 20 are believed to be alive.

“We have 28 corpses and one woman [among them],” said Cohen. “And the corpses can disappear with time. They don’t conduct intelligence about the bodies, and Gaza will lose sight of where they are.”

Some of Haiman’s friends have processed her loss through art, which had always been her medium, said Cohen.

She was known in the local graffiti world as Pink Question, shortened to Pink — the handle she used as she painted around Israel.

Yifat Haiman, Inbar’s mother, has said in interviews that her daughter began creating graffiti with friends when she was about 15. In Haifa, where she lived while attending the WIZO art school, Haiman would create graffiti late at night, either alone or with someone standing guard to check that the coast was clear.

When Haiman was still thought to be alive in captivity, friends painted the slogan “Free Pink” beside train tracks in northern Israel and by roads, including near her parents’ Petah Tikvah home.

The message “RIP Pink: Rest in Paint” now appears between shop entrances on Haifa’s Ha’atzmaut Street, near her former school.

Haiman’s art also contributed to her presence at the Nova rave. Beyond her work as a helper, she had brought three of her paintings to try to sell at the party.

Haiman had been due to begin her final year at WIZO in October 2023 and was preparing for a career in design and artistic branding. She and her boyfriend, Noam Alon, who also studied at the school, had wanted to open a studio together.

“She did everything; that was our girl,” said Cohen.

Despite a deep sense of abandonment by the government over its handling of the hostage crisis, the family is in regular touch with IDF authorities, with hostage negotiator Nitzan Alon and hostage envoy Gal Hirsch, and with politicians from both sides of the aisle, said Cohen.

She is careful to participate in lawful rallies and protests, staying away from the illegal blocking of roads, tire burnings or other such acts.

“We work within the law, we won’t do anything outside the law,” she said.

The family fears that history is repeating itself, with Haiman the great-granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor.

“Eighty years ago, we were promised ‘never again’, and we got it a second time,” said Cohen. “A holocaust touched our family a second time.”