‘Sorry we didn’t bring you back alive’: Hostage Tsahi Idan buried beside murdered daughter

For his funeral service, Tsahi Idan’s family chose a place that was sacred to him: Bloomfield Stadium, home to his beloved Hapoel Tel Aviv soccer team.

A VIP season-ticket holder, Idan often attended games with his daughters before October 7, 2023, when he was abducted and his eldest daughter Maayan murdered during Hamas’s attack on southern Israel.

Idan was killed in captivity, and his body was returned to Israel on Wednesday, after 509 days, in the last exchange of hostages required under the current Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

Attended on Friday by hundreds of fans, family members and other mourners, the stadium ceremony marked the beginning of Tsahi’s final journey, and ended with his burial at Kibbutz Einat beside Maayan. The Idan family, via the Hostages and Missing families Forum, invited the public to line the route and wave Israeli flags in solidarity.

Images of Tsahi and his daughters attending past matches were displayed on screens around the stadium. The ceremony began with a minute of silence, but in keeping with the soccer club’s tradition, the crowd was asked to fill the silence with continuous applause.

Relatives of Idan asked him to forgive them for not managing to bring him home alive, and lambasted the Israeli government for its failure to do so.

Idan, 49 years old when kidnapped, is survived by his wife and three other children.

Speaking at Bloomfield, Idan’s relatives accused the government of failing to bring him back alive and called for all remaining hostages to be released at once, rather than in staggered releases as delineated in the tenuous hostage deal.

“I’m sorry, from all of us, that you came back in a coffin, and not on your feet, as you left,” Idan’s sister Noam told the assembled crowd of hundreds. “Our leaders’ task was to keep Tsahi alive, and they made very tough choices, with unbearable results.”

We can’t imagine the nightmare you endured. Terrorists invade your home, broadcasting everything live. Your beloved daughter Maayan is murdered before your eyes. I will never forget the fear in your eyes as you tried to calm your little children. Then, torn from them to be… pic.twitter.com/UjaCuAwnyn

— Cochav Elkayam-Levy (@CochavElkayam) February 27, 2025

In the Hamas assault, Idan and his family were put “in situations the devil himself couldn’t have dreamed up… Tsahi was kidnapped and Maayani was murdered,” said Noam, sporting a red Hapoel jersey.

She said “the greatest test of my life,” to bring Tsahi home, had started 10 months after the passing of their father, a “sports nut” who supported the rival, blue-and-yellow Maccabi Tel Aviv.

As a tribute to her brother, Noam had made a red ribbon to complement the yellow one adopted by hostage families.

“I look at the world through Tsahi’s red eyes and see that the whole country is yellow. [I] hear my father boasting and Tsahi taunting,” she said. “So I decided, together with my family, that a red ribbon was our debt to Tsahi.”

“The goal of the red ribbon was, first and foremost, that people will stop and ask, ‘Why red?’ leading to a conversation about Tsahi who was captive in Gaza,” she said. “The other goal was to let more people join the most important struggle we have in this country, which is to bring all the hostages back home as quickly as possible.”

“Stop dividing us into groups — ‘returned,’ ‘slain,’ ‘living,’ ‘man,’ ‘woman,’ and so on,” she said, referring to the releases of certain categories of hostages under the agreement with Hamas. “We’re a single group of 251 hostages, and we have to do everything to bring them home now.” (There now remain 59 hostages in Gaza, of which at least 35 have been confirmed dead by the IDF.)

Yigal Idan, Tsahi’s uncle, accused the government of using his nephew’s captivity as a tool in a game of divisiveness.

“Dear Tsahi, although your home, I want to apologize. I’m sorry we didn’t bring you back alive,” he said. “I’m sorry the country forgot about you and didn’t know how to get you back in time.

“I’m sorry we live in a world where geniuses like you languish in Gaza’s tunnel hell, and contemptible leaders allowed themselves to sentence you to death, and life continues as though nothing happened,” said the uncle.

“Please know, Tsahi, that we won’t continue like this,” he said. “We won’t let this crisis take over.”

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— Hapoel Tel Aviv FC (@HapoelTelAvivFC) February 28, 2025

“We’ll fight for a different country — a country where right and left are brothers, where a kippah-wearer and non-religious person can have a real conversation, a country where human life is a sacred value, not a pawn in a political game,” he said. “Our only mission as a nation is to bring all the hostages home in a single release.”

Speaking to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Yigal reflected on the three tragedies that had befallen his family over the past 16 months, beginning with Maayan’s murder; the death of his own son, Guy Idan, who campaigned tirelessly for his cousin’s release and who was killed in a Hezbollah projectile attack while fighting in Lebanon last October; and ending with Tsahi’s return in a coffin.

“No words can capture the anger and sadness that we weren’t able to bring him home alive after such a fight,” he said. “There is a small measure of comfort that at least Tsahi is with us now, and that he will be buried next to his daughter.”

He added, “Sadness has filled us at all times, but I hope today, right now, is where it ends. That we will be able to return to grieving, and then to rebuilding.”

Tsahi Idan was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas onslaught that sparked the war in Gaza. Terrorists shot Maayan dead as they stormed the house, then held Tshai, his wife Gali, and two of their children hostage in the house for some time before abducting Tsahi to Gaza.

The attack on the family’s home was filmed by the terrorists using Gali’s phone and live-streamed by them to her Facebook account, as the weeping children were seen asking about their dead sister and whether they too would be killed.

As the family sat together on the floor trying to comfort each other, Tsahi, his hands covered in Maayan’s blood, was also seen asking if he could attend to his daughter, a request the terrorists refused.

Gali and the two children survived, as did a third child who was not at home at the time of the attack.

Roni Litvak, who grew up with Tsahi in Nahal Oz, said the thought of attending his funeral had devastated the whole community.

“We’ve been on this journey for a year and three months, and it should have had a very different ending,” she said, noting that Tsahi had been slated for release in the November 2023 hostage release deal, before it ended after 10 days. “Instead, after 510 days, we’re getting him in a coffin.”

She refrained from assigning blame to Israel’s leadership, however, saying, “Today is not a day for getting into who should be held accountable.”

Dror Yahalom, a Hapoel Tel Aviv fan, said there was “no question” about making the trip to the stadium to say his farewells to Idan.

“Hapoel Tel Aviv is much more than soccer; it really is a family,” he said. “Even though I didn’t know him personally, Tsahi was my brother.”

May Raz, who is not a Hapoel fan, attended after feeling guilty for missing the funeral procession of another fallen hostage, Kfir Bibas, the infant who was buried earlier in the week with his toddler brother and their mother, all murdered in Gaza.

“There are no more words,” Raz said. “The sadness is too much. I’ve spent the whole week crying.”

Tsahi Idan’s body was returned to Israel overnight Wednesday, along with the bodies of hostages Itzik Elgarat, Ohad Yahalomi and Shlomo Mantzur.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Office said Elgarat, Idan and Yahalomi were murdered in captivity, while Mantzur, 86, was murdered during the Hamas onslaught and his body snatched to Gaza.

In exchange for the four, Israel set free over 600 Palestinian prisoners, including dozens serving life sentences in connection with deadly terror attacks.

The Palestinian prisoners had been slated for release on Saturday, after Hamas returned six living hostages. Israel delayed the prisoners’ release in protest of Hamas’s parading of hostages and hostages’ caskets when handing them over to the Red Cross. Following Israel’s protests, Hamas handed over the bodies of Elgarat, Idan, Yahalomi and Mantzur without fanfare.

The bodies’ return on Wednesday night was the final hostage release of the ceasefire deal’s first phase, which expires on Saturday after 42 days. The first phase saw Hamas release 33 women, children, civilian men over 50 and those deemed “humanitarian cases,” in exchange for some 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, including over 270 serving life sentences for the murders of dozens of Israelis. Of the 33 returned hostages, 25 came back alive.

A potential second phase, if the sides are able to agree to it, would see Hamas release the remaining living hostages and Israel withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Talks for the second phase were supposed to begin on February 3 — day 16 of the first phase — but commenced only on Thursday, after Netanyahu’s initial refusal to negotiate. The premier’s right-wing flank has threatened to topple the government should Israel proceed to the second phase.