From her home in East London, British-Israeli Sharone Lifschitz by no means gave up hope that her 84-year-old father Oded would return from the horror of Hamas captivity, after greater than 500 days.
He was a person of peace, a campaigner for, and a good friend of, Palestinians.
He was dragged from his residence by Palestinian gunmen on October seventh and killed in captivity after being taken to Gaza alive.
The return of his physique on Thursday was devastating information for Ms Lifschitz and her household, significantly her mom Yocheved who was additionally a hostage however returned alive and now will be unable to reunite along with her husband of 63 years.
After figuring out Oded’s physique, the top of Israel’s Nationwide Institute of Forensic Drugs mentioned he was killed in captivity greater than a yr in the past. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Workplace mentioned he “was murdered in captivity by the Islamic Jihad terrorist group.”
The BBC have been with Sharone, a filmmaker and tutorial, at her residence when the ceasefire was introduced final month.
She shed tears of pleasure and hope as finally she noticed a chance the place she would uncover what had occurred to her father. After greater than a yr of him being held hostage, she did not know if he was alive or useless.
Sharone Lifschitz admitted then that at his age the hopes for his survival have been slim, however she additionally believed “miracles can occur.”
Ms Lifschitz has been an eloquent and dignified voice for the discharge of her father and the opposite hostages, and make clear the trauma the hostage households have confronted since their ordeal started.
“A technique or one other, we are going to know. We are going to know if he is nonetheless with us, if we will take care of him. We are going to know who we’re grieving for… My father did not deserve this.
However she recognised there have been “extra graves to return.”
And now, one might be for her father.
Oded Lifshitz was a journalist and veteran campaigner for peace who drove sick Palestinians to hospitals in Israel for therapy. In his marketing campaign for Palestinian rights he met Yasser Arafat, then head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
He helped to discovered Kibbutz Nir Oz, the place he lived and was taken hostage from. It was a spot the place he was well-known for the cacti that he grew, the piano he performed and the grandchildren he adored.
His spouse Yocheved, who was freed as a hostage by Hamas in 2023, met then-Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar whereas held within the tunnels underneath Gaza – and informed him he needs to be ashamed of himself.
The British attorneys supporting the household mentioned “Yocheved should be the one particular person to have met Sinwar, Netanyahu and the Pope, and given all of them a bit of her thoughts. That’s the form of extraordinary particular person she is.”
On Wednesday, as she acquired a peace award for her campaigning for the hostages, she mentioned: “Oded was an excellent fighter for peace. He had excellent relations with Palestinians and the factor that hurts essentially the most is that they betrayed him.”
His household mentioned they may now mourn for a husband, father, grandfather and nice grandfather, however after “503 agonising days of uncertainty”, that they had “hoped and prayed for a unique end result.”
