Thousands of people attended the funeral of fallen hostage IDF Warrant Officer (res.) Lior Rudaeff, an emergency service volunteer who died defending Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak on Oct. 7, 2023.
The funeral procession began at Camp Shura, the Military Rabbinate headquarters, located near Ramla in central Israel, which serves as the National Center for the Treatment of Fallen Soldiers of Israel.
Teams from Magen David Adom, the emergency medical service where Rudaeff volunteered for years as an ambulance driver, accompanied a convoy that carried his remains to the cemetery in Nir Yitzhak.
Yaffa, Rudaeff’s widow, eulogized him: “It is a relief that you are finally receiving a proper burial in the soil you defended and fought for. This is not the ending I prayed for,” Maariv reported.
“Even after we received the notification that you were killed on that cursed Saturday, the mind understood but the heart refused to believe. They say time heals, but the longing only grows stronger. You are so missed. You would have been so proud to see our children showing such strength in the fight to bring you home. They are so much like you,” the report continued.
“Yesterday, another painful and long chapter closed with the return of [IDF Lt.] Hadar Goldin home. There is still a struggle to bring back four more hostages, and only then will we be able to close the circle. Now I part from you forever. The half of our whole, the glue of our family. Thank you for 41 years together, in good times and bad. Your journey in this world ended far too early, and I want to ask for your forgiveness. Forgive me that it took so long, and that we never truly said goodbye on that morning,” Yaffa Rudaeff said.
Noam Katz Rudaeff, Lior’s daughter, said: “More than two years you haven’t been here, yet you are so present. You taught us to laugh at everything, even when it hurts, because it heals the soul. And still, every time thoughts of that morning creep in, I am horrified by what you saw and what you went through. You found Oren [Goldin] and realized you couldn’t save him, and then Tal [Haimi] was hit, and you tried to save him again and again while dozens of armed terrorists were closing in on you. Boaz [Abraham] ran toward you; I managed to see him and Ofek [Arazi] heading your way. I really hope you heard them and understood that you weren’t alone. But you were alone, completely alone.”
All those mentioned in the daughter’s eulogy were members of the kibbutz who were slain on Oct. 7.
Rudaeff, 61 at the time of his death, fought bravely against the dozens of terrorists who invaded the kibbutz. He was part of Nir Yitzhak’s civilian rapid response team, which managed to repel the invaders. Five residents were murdered and eight were abducted into the Gaza Strip.
His body was taken by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group, according to IDF intelligence.
Rudaeff’s death was officially determined by the Israeli army on May 7, 2024. His body was returned to Israel overnight Friday as part of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
Rudaeff leaves behind his wife, Yaffa, children Noam, Nadav, Bar and Ben, three grandchildren, a father, a sister and a brother.
The four bodies still held in the Gaza Strip belong to three Israelis—Meny Godard and Dror Or from Kibbutz Be’eri, and Israel Police Sgt. Maj. Ran Gvili, who was killed in action at Kibbutz Alumim—and Thai agricultural worker Sudthisak Rinthalak, who was taken from the Be’eri area.
