The body of Dror Or was returned to Israel for a proper Jewish burial.
By Rachel Avraham
In recent days, the body of deceased hostage Dror Or was returned to Israel for a proper Jewish burial. Or, age 48, was murdered by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization during the October 7th massacre and his body was abducted to Gaza. His wife Yonat Or was also murdered during the same massacre on Kibbutz Be’eri, but her body was not abducted to Gaza. Or’s children Noam and Alma were abducted alive to Gaza and were returned to Israel on November 25, 2023.
On October 7, terrorists reached their home in the Kerem neighborhood on Kibbutz Be’eri, Israel Hayom noted. The family barricaded themselves in the safe room as their house was set on fire, Israel Hayom added. While inside, united and embracing, Dror and Yonat made the critical decision to get their children out through the window – an action that ultimately saved their lives, Israel Hayom stressed. Afterward, the couple separated and attempted to escape, but both were caught and murdered, Israel Hayom noted.
Or was a devoted father to his three children – Yahli Or (18), Noam Or (17), and Alma Or (13), Israel Hayom reported. According to the report, he served as Kibbutz Be’eri’s cheesemaker, a leading culinary professional, and a yoga instructor. “He was the nicest person any kibbutz has ever produced,” Dafi Cramer, a culinary tour guide in the Gaza-border region who knew Or from his early days at the Be’eri dairy, told Haaretz.
Or’s hard work paid off. “The global ‘Slow Food’ movement awarded him, just before the massacre, the Community Hero award, recognizing the dairy as meeting all the criteria for seasonality,” Cramer notes.
She adds that Or’s ambitions did not end there. “He had big dreams, and perhaps unconventional ones for a kibbutznik. Dror dreamed of opening a visitors’ center together with Yaki Sagi and Tom Carbone, because the dairy itself had no space to host visitors. They wanted to develop tourism in a region that was very much a culinary desert, so they applied to open such a center just outside the kibbutz.”
Cramer told Haaretz: “He always loved food, and Dagan Peleg, the head cheesemaker, brought him into the Be’eri dairy, where he became his right-hand man. He traveled to Europe to study and refine his craft, and when he returned, he had an enormous drive to develop the dairy and go beyond the standard cottage cheese, curds, and Circassian cheese they were making. He really took the dairy to new heights.”
Cramer told Haaretz: “He was truly like his name, Dror [‘freedom’ in Hebrew]. A free spirit who brightened every place he entered. There aren’t many people whose name fits them so perfectly. He was one of those Israelis we love to love, the kind the country is so desperately missing.”
“The Government of Israel shared in the deep sorrow of the Or family and all the families of deceased hostages. The government and all of Israel’s state security apparatus were determined, committed, and working tirelessly to return the two remaining deceased hostages for proper burial in their homeland,” the PM’s office said in a statement, adding that “The Hamas terror organization was required to fulfill its commitments to the mediators and return them as part of implementing the agreement. The government would not compromise on this and would spare no effort until all the hostages returned home, every last one of them.”
Two other deceased hostages remain in the Gaza Strip: Ran Gvili, 24, and Sudthisak Rinthalak, 43, Israel Hayom reported. Gvili, an Israel Police counter-riot fighter, killed 14 terrorists before he was abducted, Israel Hayom added. Rinthalak, a Thai national, was kidnapped while working in the orchards of Be’eri, the report stressed.
Photo from All Israel News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-jzLYwOgXg
