'Goodbye, Once Again': Israeli Mother Buries Hostage Son For Third Time

The family of Ofir Tzarfati, a young Israeli who was seized from a music festival, taken to Gaza and killed, was caught between grief and fury on Thursday as they buried their son for the third time.

"Once again, I have to say goodbye. For the third time. The third time, Ofir. There is no human pain in this world that can compare to such a thing," the hostage's mother, Richelle Tzarfati, said. 

"There is no mother in the world who should stand three times over the open grave of her son," she added, as her family and well-wishers held a funeral ceremony at a cemetery in Kiryat-Ata, outside Haifa.

Tzarfati was 27 on October 7, 2023, when he was abducted from the Nova music festival by attackers and taken back to Gaza, along with 250 other hostages seized across southern Israel.

Tzarfati died early in his captivity, and Israeli troops brought back some of his body in December 2023, allowing his family to hold a funeral. 

More of his remains were recovered and returned home in March 2024, and another funeral was held.

But his story, and his family's torment, did not end there.        

In August 2024, Hamas published a photograph of Tzarfati's body to intimidate the families of surviving hostages, and then this week, they handed over a third bundle of his remains in place of the promised return of another hostage.

The Israeli military released video footage appearing to show Hamas operatives rapidly burying something wrapped in a shroud, then inviting Red Cross observers to witness its "discovery" amid Gaza's ruins.

Once the body was subjected to forensic tests in Israel, officials realised that instead of another hostage on the list of 28 remains due for return under the new Gaza ceasefire deal, they had received more of Tzarfati's remains.

A furious Israel accused Hamas of breaking the ceasefire arrangement, and the International Committee of the Red Cross denounced the fake recovery operation as "unacceptable". 

"My heart no longer knows how to hold this. Each time, it tears apart again, as if two years haven't passed. As if it's happening again. And the soul screams, because there's nowhere to escape from this pain," Richelle Tzarfati said Thursday.

"The ones who did this, the ones who kidnapped, who desecrated, who keep lying again and again to the world, they didn't just murder Ofir, they continue to trample on his memory, to use bodies to play games, as if what they have already taken from us isn't enough."

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