Ziv Hagbi, 29: Partygoer who taught himself fluent Arabic
Murdered by Hamas terrorists while trying to flee the Supernova music festival on October 7
Ziv Hagbi, 29, from Kibbutz Gevim, was murdered by Hamas terrorists while trying to flee the Supernova music festival on October 7.
He attended the rave with a group of friends, and when the rocket fire began they decided to leave the site of the festival via car, intending to head to Ziv’s family home in Gevim, near Sderot.
When they realized that cars were coming under fire from Hamas terrorists, the group decided to get out of the vehicle and run back to the site of the festival. Amid the chaos the group ended splitting up, and Ziv was last seen hiding in the bushes between the parking lot and the nearby Kibbutz Re’im.
Ziv was considered missing for more than a week until his body was identified.
He was buried in Gevim on October 16. He is survived by his parents, Reut and Pesach, and his younger brother Guy.
Born and raised in Kibbutz Gevim, Ziv attended school in the nearby Sderot, according to a state eulogy.
After finishing high school, he did a year of national service at a dormitory for at-risk youth who had previously been hospitalized or attended rehab. Ziv then enlisted in the IDF, serving in the Paratroopers Brigade’s reconnaissance unit.
Following his release, Ziv worked for a year in the fishery at Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael in the north before taking off for 10 months of traveling around Asia. In recent years, Ziv was living in Yafo in south Tel Aviv and devoting his time to studying and perfecting his Arabic, specifically the Egyptian dialect, in which he became fluent.
He was slated to begin a degree in Mideast studies and international relations at Tel Aviv University just a few weeks after he was killed.
His friends said he had a keen sense of humor, loved sports, Hapoel Tel Aviv, dancing at music festivals and would always say that any new person he met was “first of all a king, unless proven otherwise.”
Ziv’s friend, Maya Baitner, wrote on Facebook that they met “through our shared love of the Arabic language.”
“Ziv had an amazing vibe, he was the kind of person that always drew a lot of interest, love and smiles from everyone around,” she wrote. “Just two weeks ago, we sat on the beach in Jaffa, laughed, and talked about life… He had an exciting love and curiosity for the language, and such wide knowledge… He always knew how to find the word that I forgot how to say.”
Ziv’s younger brother, Guy, wrote on Instagram that “anything I say will minimize who you were.”
His brother, he said, “was always calm, always helping, always here. There are people who always know what to say, but you always knew what to do. They say people don’t remember what you said but what you made them feel — that’s you, my brother, you made everyone feel like they were the best, number one, that you’re with them until the end.”
Guy wrote that he misses his “presence, the feeling that everything is good now, and if it’s not, then you’ll make us feel like it’s good… I want your optimism, I want your motivation, I want your calm, I want your smile, I want to know how to enjoy like you. I want to hear you say again, ‘What are you worried about, bro? You’ll figure it out.’ I want to love everyone the way you loved.”
The Times of Israel Community.