‘We fought for you, Dad’: Lior Rudaeff buried 2 years after he was killed on Oct. 7

Two years after he was killed while battling the Hamas invasion of Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, Lior Rudaeff was finally laid to rest on Monday in the kibbutz.

Rudaeff, Nir Yitzhak’s deputy security coordinator, was killed while battling Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists in the kibbutz on the morning of October 7, 2023, and his body was abducted to Gaza. For months, his family held out hope that he had been kidnapped alive, until the IDF confirmed in May 2024 that the 61-year-old had been slain in the initial attack.

His remains were returned to Israel from Gaza by Hamas on Friday, a month after the start of a ceasefire that mandated the terror group return all of the hostages, dead and alive. He was posthumously recognized by the IDF as a fallen soldier with the rank of warrant officer in the reserves.

Rudaeff is survived by his wife, Yaffa; his four children, Noam, Nadav, Bar and Ben; several grandchildren; his father, Giora; and his siblings, Idit and Doron.

Speaking at the funeral on Monday, Yaffa said this wasn’t the ending she prayed for, but that Lior would have been proud of his children for battling for two years to bring him home.

“You are home now,” she said. “You would have been so proud to see our children showing such strength in the struggle to bring you back.”

“Now I say goodbye to you forever — the half of our whole, the glue of our family,” Yaffa continued. “Thank you for 41 years together, in good times and in bad. Your journey in this world ended far too soon, and I want to ask your forgiveness — forgiveness that it took so long, and that we never truly said goodbye that morning.”

Rudaeff was born in Argentina and moved to Israel with his family at age 7, settling in Nir Yitzhak. He became a mechanics expert, teaching kibbutz teens how to operate tractors and forklifts, and working for the last 18 years of his life as a traffic safety officer for a transportation safety company.

He served as a member of the kibbutz’s local security team for around 40 years, and as a Magen David Adom (MDA) ambulance driver for approximately 25 years. He set out on October 7 to join the local defense squad in battling the terror invasion and was killed in the fighting.

His funeral procession on Monday included a number of MDA motorcycle riders and an ambulance donated in his name.

“In what kind of world did you have to sacrifice your life like that?” asked his son, Ben, in his eulogy. “In what kind of world do we bury you after two years? Who would have believed we’d have to fight to bring you back? But, Dad, you’re here — you’re finally home.”

Ben said he wished he could tell his father all about his travels to Thailand and India over the past two years, trips that were always tinged with sadness, he said.

Lior’s daughter, Noam, said the journey to finally bring her father home to Israel “was too long, too painful, a journey without a happy ending, but finally — it has an end.”

“Today you are home as you deserve, and you are being buried in the land that you set out to defend with all your heart,” she added, saying that in the time that he has been gone, Lior has had a new granddaughter, “sharp, just like you.”

Another son, Nadav, spoke about how much he misses his father’s voice, his scoldings, his strong hugs, his smiles and joy over his grandkids, as well as the toothpick that was often in his father’s mouth.

“We fought for you, Dad — you wouldn’t believe how far we went and what we did for you,” said Nadav, who became a familiar face in the two-year public struggle for the hostages. “We fought for you just as you fought for us on that cursed day. You were always the first to go out and the last to come back.”

“Today is finally for you,” he added. “I hope that somewhere, you’re driving a pickup truck with a dog in the back, blasting the music you love.”