For 16 months, Oded Lifshitz’s UK-based daughter Sharone has fought like a lion alongside her siblings for her release – never losing sight of the human suffering in Gaza.
Her 84-year-old dad – who Hamas claim is among the four hostage bodies to be returned this morning – would have no doubt been full of pride at the rare mixture of determination, passion and humanity she never abandoned. Afterall, Oded and his wife Yocheved — who was released after two weeks in captivity in Gaza — were veteran peace activists and were among the founders of Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Oded was born in 1940 and brought up in Haifa, where he attended the city’s prestigious Reali School. He became a parachute member of the Israeli army’s 50th Battalion, and in 1955 he went to the other end of the country to help found the southern kibbutz, serving as both co-ordinator and treasurer of Nir Oz in its early years.
He became a journalist for the left-of-centre Al Hamishmar; one report says he was an on-the-ground journalist during the Sabra and Shatila deaths in southern Lebanon in 1982.
Between 1983 and 1995 Oded Lifshitz worked for Al Hamishmar, and also prepared material for a popular Army Radio programme on economics.
But the couple’s real passion was peace activism, often displayed as a direct result of Nir Oz’s location in the south of the country. For example, Oded successfully defended in court Bedouin residents of Rafah when the IDF was engaged in evacuating the Sinai Peninsula.
Yocheved Lifshitz (sitting) with her grandchildren at Ichilov Hospital following her release from Hamas captivity on October 23, 2023. (Courtesy)
Later in life both Oded and Yocheved worked for an Israeli organisation, Road to Recovery, which aids Palestinian citizens in need of medical care by providing transport to Israeli hospitals across the border. Oded, like many in his community, was a frequent driver of such patients, picking them up near the kibbutz.
Sharone, a filmmaker, recalled that her father had once “met [the late Palestinian leader] Arafat”, adding: “We had relationships with many people in Gaza, we were a community that wanted to work together.”
Oded’s wife, Yocheved, a former physical education teacher, was a steely individual who made international headlines when she revealed, after her release from Gaza, that she had confronted the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, in the tunnels where the hostages had been taken.
Yocheved, who had been separated from her husband, told the Davar newspaper: “Sinwar was with us three to four days after we arrived. I asked him how he is not ashamed to do such a thing to people who all these years have supported peace. He didn’t answer. He was silent,” she said.
The octogenarian couple were taken hostage, seized from their safe room, on 7 October, as five Hamas gunmen burst into their home on Kibbutz Nir Oz. Oded was shot in the hand and lost consciousness, while Yocheved was pulled from her bed. It was later discovered that Oded was initially held in an apartment in Khan Younis, but after 20 days in captivity, when his health deteriorated, his whereabouts became unknown.
Sharone Lifshitz, writing in the Guardian last month, said: “Our family friend and neighbour Chana Katzir returned from Gaza 48 days later in the first hostage deal and told us she was with him there and that he had survived his kidnapping, despite being shot”.
Her mother said: “She told us that he was alive and that he functioned well and had helped her a lot because she was having a very difficult time. On the 20th day, he felt unwell, and they dragged him out of the room”.
Sharone continued: “Chana died recently and is now buried between her husband, murdered on 7 October, and her son, also a hostage, whose body was recovered from Gaza in April. The IDF believe he was murdered by Palestinian Islamic Jihad in mid-January [2024]”.
But beyond Chana Katzir’s account, the Lifshitz family had no news about Oded. and did not know until the very last hours whether he was alive or dead.
Sharone Lifshitz said: “We have infinite questions about what our loved ones have endured in more than 470 days of captivity, but may soon face the most binary of answers. We are bracing ourselves. I wish I knew how to prepare for that, knew what was the right thing to do, what to say to all those hoping and praying with us”.
Kibbutz Nir Oz was virtually destroyed as a result of the Hamas attack, losing one in four of its 400 members either to murder or kidnap. Sharone Lifshitz noted: “My mum tells me when she closes her eyes at night that she is back in the Hamas tunnels in Gaza, with the hostages she left behind. ‘Until they are all back,’ she says, ‘I cannot escape the tunnels.’ We are in this together”.
“After 50 days, when the released women came out, it turned out that one of them, a member of Nir Oz, was with him,” Yocheved said. “She told us that he was alive and said that he functioned well and helped her a lot because she was having a very difficult time. On the 20th day, he felt unwell, and they dragged him out of the room. Since then, his whereabouts have been unknown, and we know nothing about him.”
Yizhar Lifshitz, Sharone’s brother, told 103 FM, an Israeli radio station: “I feel like an orphan. We know that my father lived in an apartment for at least two or three weeks after he was kidnapped. He was wounded, in pain, bruised from the beatings and with gunshot wounds in his hand – alone, miserable, in some apartment in Khan Younis, without knowing what happened to his friends from the kibbutz or to my mother.”
Yizhar added: “My father became a public figure, judging by the sheer number of people who prayed for him, wished him well, and spoke about him in the media and in our personal lives. Everything has been said about him. He had a vision for how the Middle East should function.
“He supported the Oslo Accords because he believed it was the only way to prevent a major war. He foresaw the future in many ways. Even today, when we discuss solutions, it is disheartening to realise that we went through this entire cycle and still failed to resolve the issue. We left it simmering, and look where we are now.”
His son added that Oded had never discovered what had happened to his wife. Other hostages told the family: “At some point during his captivity, he was searching for her while undergoing medical treatment. My mother was taken out of the hospital while he was unconscious, and they threw him outside. She was taken away on a motorcycle toward Khan Younis, and they were separated. They have not seen each other since.”
Yizhar told 103 FM: “She is a pragmatic woman. She knew there was a real danger to his life. When she returned, she described his situation as though he were already gone. She saw him shot and thrown outside the house before they took her. Then there were moments of hope when we received signs of life from him”. [This included the discovery that Oded’s mobile phone was somewhere in Gaza.] “After that, she continued her struggle, but she understood his condition and the odds he faced.”
Oded’s grandson, Daniel Lifschitz, a former goalkeeper for Israeli soccer clubs and the national under-21 team, had also been campaigning since the kidnapping to secure his grandfather’s release. “This is an impossible situation to prepare for,”” he said previously. “The last thing I want is to prepare for a celebration and a funeral simultaneously.”
