Ilan Weiss, who was murdered and abducted during the October 7 massacre and whose body was recovered from Gaza last week, was laid to rest yesterday (Monday) at Kibbutz Be'eri.
His family, friends, kibbutz members, and families of hostages gathered for the funeral ceremony held at the kibbutz cemetery.
Maayan Weiss, Ilan's daughter, stated in her eulogy: "My father, where do I begin? How do you summarize 692 terrible days of endless waiting? My emotions are mixed. The moment we longed for has arrived—you've come home. But now it's final. How I feared this moment. We prepared ourselves for this moment for nearly two years. We knew you didn't survive the October 7th massacre, yet still, the news of your recovery last Thursday caught me unprepared."
"To tell the truth, I've been writing this eulogy for months, hoping so desperately that we would be able to lay you to rest—to stand over your grave, to cry, to eulogize. In a perfect world, no daughter should have to hope she'll succeed in burying her father. On the contrary, that should be her greatest fear. Dad, how I miss saying that word and having someone answer me. Such a small word that means so much," she said.
"Grandpa Avri, your father, survived the Nazi Holocaust in Hungary. And you, Dad—you lost your life eighty years later on Israeli soil, simply for being Jewish. 'Never again' is now. This isn't a slogan. Enough. Stop the war and bring all the hostages home in a deal—the living and the dead alike—some for rehabilitation in their families' embrace, others for proper burial on Israeli soil. Now. I love you so much, my dear father," Maayan concluded.
Osnat Weiss Shoshan, Ilan's sister, added: “You left us far too young, yet you managed to put down strong roots and touch so many people. I feel that even though you're no longer here physically, your spirit remains and you continue to be with us in hidden ways."
"696 days after you went out courageously and were brutally murdered, you finally return to the land you loved so much. This is an opportunity to thank from the bottom of our hearts the IDF and Shin Bet who brought you back to us, and all the good people who supported us with endless devotion throughout this entire journey. You gave us strength to get through this dark period.
"Today we're closing our private circle. It's a sad closure, but it's important and necessary. I won't stop fighting to bring home all the remaining hostages—some for rehabilitation, others for burial. I love you, my brother," she said.
Racheli and Tal, Ilan's friends from the Be'eri Emergency Response Team, stated: "We were a winning team—Arik, you, Racheli, and me. Ilan—you were the quiet heart of the team. Calculated, smart, diligent, and methodical—one of those people everyone wants by their side."
"On that Black Saturday, even before everything fell apart and collapsed, we instructed our friends to enter safe rooms, and decided to manage the emergency center from our homes. But then the skies turned black, and Be'eri became a bleeding killing field," they said. "When I realized that Arik wasn't opening the armory and that the worst had probably happened to him, I asked you to go out."
"And you, without thinking twice—you went out. You went out to save lives, you went out to give weapons to the standby squad. The murderers' hands cut short your life, but not your heroism," they concluded.