Posted on 11/11/25
| News Source: Arutz-7
Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, who fell and was abducted during the Battle of Rafah in 2014, was finally laid to rest on Tuesday in his hometown of Kfar Saba after being returned to Israel for burial this week
IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir noted in his address at the funeral: "This moment gathers within itself thousands of days of anticipation and abysmal sadness, a moment for which all our prayers were focused for over 11 years. With a salute and bowed heads, we accompany Hadar today on his final journey, one he deserved long ago, after a period in which you, his dear family, became a compass and a conscience for the entire people of Israel, a compass that we in the IDF will continue to carry forever.”
"The circle is closed, Operation Defensive Edge has concluded. Leah and Simcha, Tzur, Hemi, Ayelet, and Edna, the entire nation walked alongside you down the difficult path to bring Hadar home."
Hadar's father, Simcha, eulogized him: "'Walk in the straight path and don't hate each other.' Hadar asked his mother to teach him how to sew, and he sewed within himself the words 'courage and humility.' He was a Jewish warrior."
Simcha added: "Over the past 11 years, we abandoned Hadar in the enemy's captivity, we became addicted to respect, to money, to arguments, and to forgetting our roots. We couldn't convince Israeli society, which abandoned the fallen, until Simchat Torah."
Leah Goldin lamented: "Hadar, we waited 11 years. That's a lot of time. A lot. I don't really have an explanation for how we did it. Every time we sank, someone in the family would jump and say, 'But what would Hadar say?' So we are here thanks to all the instructions you left us and thanks to who you are. Besides one small thing, we still waited for you to suddenly come and say that everything's fine."
“This morning, I found a passage you wrote to your Bnei Akiva students. You were having some difficulties in your tribe (the word "shevet", tribe, is the word used for a Bnai Akiva group, ed.) and you wrote words that are hard to believe came from a 16-year-old. You wrote: ‘We aim high, but right now, in the reality before our eyes, we see darkness. This is no tribe - a tribe that isn’t united, a broken tribe, an orphaned tribe. So what must we do? We need to start working, to gather rays of light, and slowly we can reach our goal.’”
Hadar's brother Hemi stated: "What didn’t we occupy ourselves with when the fields burned in the south, when we stood at the Black Arrow monument, what didn’t they do here, except bring back captives, bring you back, Hadar. And you scoundrel scum in Gaza, who are given titles like ‘Hamas,’ you’re nothing, you're made of mud and filth. Look closely at these people who stand here, and at this family, because nobody messes with this family of the people of Israel. We will bring them all back.”
Hadar's twin brother, Tzur, added: “Hamas’s abduction terror is terror aimed at families, designed to tear apart Israeli society made up of families. To put the interest of one family against the whole society, to make us choose who is worth more and who is worth less, to make us choose one value and reject another, to dismantle us from within. Our victory in this war, all of us together, is that the headline of Israeli society will be: we do not give up on one another, we leave no one behind.”
Edna Sarusi, Hadar's fiancée, remarked, "My hero Hadar, you're home, finally. Hadar, you deserve to be talked about, to give space to your extraordinary personality that walked among us, that influenced so much good and light, and is so deeply missed. There aren't many words that truly capture you. You are strength and light, creation and humor, thought and depth, intellect and emotion, innocence and love. And somehow, all these beautiful words still feel like they can't fully express the magnitude of your rare and special personality.
She added, "I always held onto the belief that this struggle was so principled and right and important because we don't leave soldiers behind. But suddenly, now that you're here, I understand how sacred and profound it is to bring you home, because this is where you belong and this is where you need to be."
"I want to remind everyone that the fight isn't over until we bring our four remaining fallen hostages home - to their families, to our soil - without giving up on anyone. Because that's what's right and what must be done."
Singer-songwriter Idan Amedi, who was active in the movement to bring Hadar home, delivered moving remarks: "October 7th was not a disaster; it was a blunder. A disaster is a natural storm, a fire, or an accident. October 7th was a failure. There was willful blindness despite the writing on the wall. This is not a war of redemption. Redemption is a painful process for an individual or a nation that recognizes trauma or crisis, that admits to downfall or ruin, that doesn't brush facts under the rug. Redemption can come when we recognize the truth, the fact that we failed. We become attentive to exploring and correcting the inner flaws, and then we can rise."