Meny Godard, a 73-year-old resident of Kibbutz Be'eri, was the abducted casualty returned to Israel on Thursday night, more than two years after he was murdered on Oct. 7 and taken into Gaza. His wife, Ayelet, was also killed during the attack on their home.
Godard had played as a striker for Hapoel Be'eri and was the team’s leading scorer. He later coached the youth squad. He was a devoted fan of Hapoel Tel Aviv.
During the war, Godard’s daughter, Bar, said the army had carried out a mission aimed at rescuing her father, who was believed to be an abducted casualty. “The officer assigned to our family told us about a daring operation and brave soldiers who tried to rescue Dad, but they could not,” she said. “In the end he told us, ‘I am so sorry.’ They managed to retrieve from an Islamic Jihad position a refrigerator that contained remains belonging to Dad, but the mission did not succeed.”
Last week, his daughter Mor shared her anguish as she prepared for his funeral. “I have planned it about 70 times,” she said. “I realized I need to wait until it actually happens. The return is a sad return. It puts the final seal on the tragedy that happened to us, but we have to reach this end. The wait for the knock on the door is unbearable. We need to know this chapter is over. It will follow us all our lives, but now we can begin to rebuild and return to life.”
This week, Bar also spoke about the difficult months the family has endured. “After a month of deep disappointments and a month of joyful news, we are still paying the highest price. We lost our mother, we lost our father, and Dad still had not come home. We are the face of this grief. At best, if there is an end, it will be a very sad end.”
With Godard’s return for burial in Israel, three abducted casualties remain in Gaza: Sergeant First Class Ran Gvili, Dror Or and Thai citizen Sudthisak Rinthalak.