With new Gaza fighting, 4 IDF widows worry the bodies of their fallen husbands won’t return
Women from the IDF Widows and Orphans Organization whose spouses are among the 35 dead hostages in Gaza call for ‘the immediate release of all hostages — living and dead’
Reporter at The Times of Israel
The widow of one of the deceased hostages whose body is being held in the Gaza Strip pleaded for an immediate deal to release all the captives as the IDF resumed fighting against Hamas in the coastal enclave on March 18.
“We need to reach an agreement that will free all hostages, both the living and the dead, in one go, together,” said Saphir Zohav Hamami, whose husband, Col. Asaf Hamami, 41, the commander of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade, was killed fighting Hamas terrorists on the morning of October 7, 2023.
There are 24 hostages still thought to be alive in Gaza, and 35 who are confirmed dead. The deceased are 34 kidnapped in the Hamas onslaught and a soldier killed in the 2014 Gaza war.
Hamami is part of an informal group of seven widows belonging to the IDF Widows and Orphans Organization (IDFWO) whose husbands’ bodies are being held in the Gaza Strip. IDFWO was founded in 1991 to support and empower the widows and orphans of fallen servicemen.
In talks with The Times of Israel, four of those widows expressed anguish and fears. For them, the resumption of IDF strikes might mean that the bodies of their husbands will be lost or left behind in Gaza for years, if not forever.
Four husbands were members of their communities’ emergency response teams. They were among the first people to fight the morning of October 7, when more than 5,000 Hamas-led terrorists stormed across the border into Israel, murdering some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, while carrying out other atrocities including rape and torture. A fifth man was a career officer, the commander of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade. And the sixth was a Bedouin sergeant major with two wives.
The six deceased fighters also leave behind 30 orphans.
Ahead of this fraught week, The Times of Israel spoke with four of the widows and captured their stories. As Israel stands on the precipice between a renewed intensive war and an extended ceasefire, we hear their pleas to bring their husbands home for burial.
Ela Haimi, 41, widow of Tal Haimi
Ela Haimi’s youngest son, Lotan, was born May 1, 2024, seven months after her husband Tal, 41, a member of the Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak emergency response team, was killed during the Hamas attack.
Haimi, a third-generation member of the kibbutz, left the house that morning to fight against the infiltrating terrorists. He was then abducted to the Gaza Strip. For the first few months, Haimi’s family held out hope that he was still alive, but the Israel Defense Forces confirmed in December 2023 that he had been killed.
“There is a baby that didn’t meet Tal and Tal doesn’t know he exists,” said Ela, speaking to The Times of Israel in a teleconference call on March 6.
The couple also have twins, now 11, and an 8-year-old son.
During Ela’s pregnancy, she was helped by “L’tzidech,” “By Your Side,” a program run by the IDFWO.
“We had a terrible, traumatic day on October 7,” Ela said, talking about her children’s pain. “Their father is not here, and they don’t know where he is.”
Her son, Udi, stopped going to school after the Hamas massacre.
“He is almost eight and he doesn’t yet know how to read and write,” she said.
Udi and one of the twins now attend Bustan B’midbar, an outdoor school that is held in the forest near Kibbutz Mashabei Sadeh, the family’s temporary home, where the kids have “finally found their place.”
“It’s very hard,” Ela said. “I’m sure that when Tal’s body comes back and we bury him on the kibbutz, it will be a little bit easier for us because it’s a kind of closure.”
Hadas Adar, 40, widow of Tamir Adar
Hadas Adar recounted that on the morning of October 7, her husband, Tamir Adar, 38, set out to support the local security team of Kibbutz Nir Oz as soon as he heard the news that hundreds of Hamas-led terrorists had invaded.
“Tamir left us in a hurry without saying goodbye,” Hadas said, a fact that is a huge cloud of darkness hanging over her and her son, Asaf, now seven.
“Asaf always tells me that Abba [Daddy] lied and said he’d be back soon,” Hadas recounted. “We were sure he’d come back. But he was taken from us.”
From what Hadas can piece together, Tamir, a farmer, was wounded while fighting at the gate of the kibbutz. He was then taken, alive, into Gaza.
The kibbutz saw 117 of its members — one out of every four residents — murdered or kidnapped.
Tamir’s grandmother, Yaffa Adar, was also kidnapped that day — immortalized in an iconic image of the attack — and released 48 days later along with 104 other civilians during a weeklong truce in late November.
When several hostages who were freed from Hamas captivity in February were reunited with their families in late January and February, Hadas said Asaf kept asking, “Will I also go to the hospital to see Abba when he returns?”
Hadas said that Asaf asks her when “his father” will return. Her daughter, Neta, now five, asks when “her father’s body” will return.
“Everyone talks about the kids who are waiting for their fathers, who are still alive, to return home to them,” said Hadas. “But our kids whose fathers aren’t alive are also waiting for their fathers.”
“Tamir was a hero and he needs an honorable burial on the kibbutz, on the land he worked and loved and died defending,” she said. “That’s the only way our healing can begin.”
Yaffa Rudaeff, 62, widow of Lior Rudaeff
Yaffa Rudaeff of Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak told The Times of Israel in a teleconference call that her husband, Lior Rudaeff, 61, got up early on October 7, preparing for a motorcycle ride with his friends. Then he got a call from the emergency response team, of which he’d been a member for 40 years, alerting him that the kibbutz had been infiltrated by Hamas terrorists.
While Lior went to fight at the kibbutz gate with Tal Haimi, Yaffa went into the safe room of her house.
At the time, she was more worried about the youngest of her four sons, Ben, who was attending the Nova music festival. Ben managed to escape from heavily armed Palestinian terrorists who stormed the festival that morning, killed at least 364 people, and took more than 40 hostages. Some of them are still held in Gaza.
All that “horrible day,” Yaffa said she heard terrorists, “along with [Palestinian] women and children — rampage through the kibbutz.”
Later that evening, the family tracked Lior’s phone to Khan Younis and slowly understood that he had been kidnapped. Seven months later, she received information that Lior had been killed on October 7.
These days, she works as an art teacher part-time because it gives her a reason to “get up in the morning.” But she said, “We feel abandoned. We sense that the hostages have been abandoned.”
Her greatest fear is that with the latest round of fighting, the Gaza Strip “will be different and they won’t be able to find Lior or anyone else.”
“He doesn’t deserve to be buried somewhere in Gaza,” she said.
Saphir Zohav Hamami, 40, widow of Asaf Hamami
On February 25, Saphir Zohav Hamami wrote an impassioned plea to US President Donald Trump, in which she spoke about the importance of bringing home the body of her husband, Col. Asaf Hamami, from Gaza.
“Asaf, along with his two soldiers, Tomer Ahimas and Kiril Brodski, engaged in a heroic battle at Kibbutz Nirim against dozens of Hamas terrorists,” Saphir wrote. By doing so, they prevented “a terrible massacre.”
While the IDF recovered the bodies of Ahimas and Brodski on July 25, 2024, in Khan Younis, Asaf’s body is still in Gaza.
“Asaf is the highest-ranking officer to be taken hostage from Israel or even in the world,” Saphir wrote. “From the depths of my aching heart, I ask – bring Asaf home, bring all the fallen home, to the State of Israel, in one final wave.”
Saphir said she received confirmation that Trump received her letter although he did not yet reply.
While an IDF funeral was held for Asaf on December 4, 2023, Saphir said, “We didn’t bury Asaf. We buried blood and a pile of sand.”
‘It is still October 7’
Another of the group of seven widows is Liat Beinin Atzili, who was taken captive by Hamas on October 7 and released during the temporary ceasefire-hostage deal in November 2023. Her husband, Aviv Atzili, a member of the Kibbutz Nir Oz emergency response team, was killed in the October 7 attack. His body is still being held in Gaza. He leaves behind three children.
Sergeant Major Muhammad Alatrash, 39, from Sa’wa, a Bedouin community in southern Israel, was a tracker in the IDF’s Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade. He battled Hamas terrorists near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where he was killed, and his body was taken to Gaza.
His death was confirmed on June 24, 2024.
He is survived by his two wives, Amna Alatrash and Ktimal Alatrash, and their 13 children.
There are 315 new widows and 670 new orphans in the IDFWO since October 7.
Until the bodies of their loved ones are returned from Gaza, said IDFWO CEO Shlomi Nahumson, “For these seven widows and 30 orphans, it is still October 7.”
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