The IDF recovered from a tunnel in the Gaza Strip the bodies of Eden Zacharia, 28, of Rishon LeZion and Sgt. Maj. Ziv Dado, 36, from Rehovot, the IDF allowed for publication on Tuesday evening. During the operation to recover the bodies, Master Sgt. (res.) Gal Meir Eisenkot and Master Sgt. (res.) Eyal Meir Berkowitz were killed, and other soldiers were injured.
Zacharia was kidnapped from the Nova music festival at Kibbutz Re'im on October 7, where she was with boyfriend Ofek Kimchi, 23, who was murdered. Her mother, Orin, said Tuesday evening that her daughter is no longer alive.
"Eden, my love, may your memory be blessed," she wrote in a Facebook post.
Dado was kidnapped and fell while serving as a logistics officer in the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade, and to this day he has been recognized as a "fallen soldier in captivity."
After an identification procedure carried out by medical officials and military rabbis, together with the National Center of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir and the Israel Police, representatives of the IDF and the police informed the families that the bodies had been recovered and returned to the territory of the State of Israel.
The bodies were recovered from the Gaza Strip and brought to Israel by the IDF in an operation of Unit 504 in the Intelligence Division and Brigade 551.
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IDF handover ceremony of the bodies recovered from Gaza
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
"We share in the grief of the families and will continue to support them," the IDF said in a statement. "Our national mission is to locate the missing and return all the hostages home. We are working together with security agencies, and with all intelligence and operational means in order to return all of the hostages home."
A few days after October 7, Eden's mother said that "when the alarms started, we asked in the family Whatsapp group if everyone was okay, and Eden managed to answer that she and Ofek were on their way back to Ofakim. Then she spoke on the phone with her dad and said, 'They are shooting at us, it's close.' After that we weren't able to reach them and we drove and searched the whole area they were in and we didn't find anything, not even the car."
According to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, "Eden was full of joy in life and loved to spend time at parties. She planned to start studying digital marketing."
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Master Sgt. (res.) Gal Meir Eisenkot and Master Sgt. (res.) Eyal Meir Berkowitz were killed in the operation to recover the bodies
Dado's funeral was held on October 25 at the military cemetery in Holon, after he was declared missing for 17 days. Stav, his wife, told Mynet after his death about October 7.
"We were at home in Rehovot with our daughter Mia around 6:30 a.m. There were alarms. I woke up - Ziv was already awake with Mia - and we entered the secure room." According to his wife, "at 7:38 a.m. he left with the car. Ziv was really in a hurry, his eyes were shining like: 'Here is an operation, that's what I'm serving for.' He was excited."