Dozens of ambassadors join memorial vigil for murdered Israeli captives

Ambassadors from more than 30 countries attended a memorial vigil on Sunday for the six Israeli hostages who were murdered in captivity in Gaza and whose bodies were brought back to Israel for burial over the weekend.

The ceremony, held at the Hostages and Missing Families Forum offices in Tel Aviv, included diplomats from the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, India, Poland and Czechia.

“For weeks, we’ve been saying that time is of the essence. Last night, we saw we’re already in overtime,” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew told attendees at Sunday’s gathering, according to local media reports.

German Ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert wrote in the Hostages and Missing Families Forum’s visitors’ book that Berlin would “continue to stand by your side and do everything we can to bring them home.”

The Israeli hostages whose remains were recovered in a tunnel in Rafah in the southernmost Gaza Strip overnight Saturday were identified as Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Almog Sarusi, 25, Alexander Lobanov, 32, Carmel Gat, 40, and Master Sgt. Ori Danino, 25.

Funerals were held throughout the day on Sunday for four of the six, including Yerushalmi, Sarusi, Lobanov and Danino.

Yerushalmi’s mother told attendees at her funeral at the Yarkon Cemetery in Petach Tikvah in central Israel, “This isn’t how I imagined you’d end up. I wanted to get you alive ... Sorry we couldn’t save you.”

At Sarusi’s funeral in Ra’anana, his sister Amit said, “I fantasized that you would start a family and return to smiling and being happy. But it won’t happen anymore. You are now joining your beloved Shahar.” Sarusi was kidnapped on Oct. 7, while his partner, Shahar Gindi, was murdered.

Michal Lobanov, during a ceremony in Ashkelon, eulogized Alexander as “the best father and the best husband we could ask for.”

“You had a good heart, you loved life, you loved freedom, a freedom that was taken from you on Oct. 7,” she said. “I knew you were alive all along. I felt it; I felt you sent me signs—please keep sending me signs.”

At Danino’s funeral, held at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl Military Cemetery, his brother said, “Your smile was the best thing that happened to me, and now it’s my nightmare. I see it everywhere and can’t stop crying.”

Hersh Goldberg-Polin will be buried on Monday at 4:00 p.m. at Jerusalem’s Har HaMenuchot cemetery, while Gat’s funeral will commence an hour later at the cemetery of Kibbutz Be’eri near Israel’s southern border.