Thousands line route as slain hostage Shlomo Mantzur buried at Gaza-area kibbutz
President asks for forgiveness from 85-year-old terror victim — oldest person abducted on October 7 — during funeral at Kissufim, week after his body was returned from Gaza
Thousands of people lined the roads from central Israel to Kibbutz Kissufim near the Gaza border on Sunday to pay their last respects to Shlomo Mantzur, a hostage murdered on October 7, 2023, whose remains were returned to Israel last week as part of the hostage-ceasefire deal.
Dozens of soldiers stood at the side of the road, saluting a convoy carrying Mantzur’s body to the Gaza-area kibbutz where he lived and worked for some seven decades and where he was among the people massacred during the October 7, 2023, onslaught.
Civilians who stood alongside roads and highways to salute Mantzur held Israeli flags and yellow banners symbolizing the plight of the hostages. Many wore sweatshirts with mustache symbols in tribute to Mantzur’s distinctive facial hair.
Mantzur’s sister, Hadassah Lazar, told Channel 12 that the family was moved by the turnout for the funeral, and remained committed to working for the release of all the hostages.
“It is a small consolation that Shlomo has been brought back and that at least we know he is with us, rather than continuing to search for him and perhaps never finding him. So, at least a slight comfort,” she said. “I never imagined we would find ourselves in such a situation, and the embrace we are receiving today is incredible. It warms our shattered hearts.”
Authorities said last month that Mantzur, 85, was murdered during his abduction from Kibbutz Kissufim on October 7, 2023.
The funeral was held without any media presence.
President Isaac Herzog, who attended the ceremony, requested forgiveness in a eulogy addressing the Iraq-born kibbutznik who was “cruelly torn away [from home] and fell into the satanic hands of the accursed murderers.”
“Forgiveness for not being able to protect you in the place that was supposed to be your fortress. Forgiveness from you, from your family, from the members of Kissufim, and from all the people of the western Negev, for not saving you on that bitter and fateful day,” said Herzog.
Born in Baghdad in 1938, Mantzur survived the Farhud pogrom in Iraq and immigrated to Israel in 1951 at age 13, becoming one of the founders of Kibbutz Kissufim, where he worked for years in the chicken coop and an eyewear factory, and learned carpentry as a hobby.
He is survived by his wife, Mazal, five children, 12 grandchildren, and five siblings. Mazal, Mantzur’s wife of 60 years, miraculously escaped the terrorists who invaded the kibbutz on October 7, 2023.
Herzog used his speech to call for a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 Hamas massacre, which the government has objected to establishing.
Aside from Mantzur, at least eight Kissufim residents and six Thai laborers were also murdered on October 7, and several others were abducted and taken to Gaza.
The remains of Mantzur, who had been thought to have been kidnapped alive until recently, was among the eight released by Gazan terrorists during the first phase of the hostage-ceasefire deal. Thirty living hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — were also released during the truce. Israel released over 1,500 Palestinian prisoners.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are still holding 59 hostages, of whom 58 are part of the 251 total abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF.
The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war.
Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.
The body of another soldier killed in 2014, Lt. Hadar Goldin, is still being held by Hamas and is counted among the 59 hostages.
The Times of Israel Community.