Body of alleged hostage Dolev Yehud, killed on October 7, discovered on Kibbutz Nir

He was assassinated by Hamas terrorists that day and his body is now in Kibbutz Nir Oz. Initially, the IDF believed that Yehud had been kidnapped in Gaza by Hamas terrorists, but after receiving no indication that he was among the hostages in Gaza, it decided to re-examine the unidentified remains found in the kibbutz on day of the massacre.

His sister Arbel Yehud is still held captive by Hamas.

Bodies and body parts were found in unrecognizable condition on kibbutzim and other border areas during the first days of the war. The IDF had been trying to determine whether Yehud had been killed or kidnapped in Gaza for several months. Having received no sign through various channels that he was being held in Gaza, the IDF began investigating whether his remains remained on Israeli territory.

His DNA was tested on some unidentified remains without conclusive results, leading to repeated testing and further scientific investigation.

The family was informed Sunday evening that Yehud's remains had been identified.

“After an identification procedure carried out by medical officials from the National Institute of Forensic Medicine and the Tzvi Bishura Institute. IDF representatives conveyed a message to the family. The IDF shares the family's grief at this time difficult,” the IDF said in a statement. statement.

The number of hostages remaining in Gaza now stands at 124.

Sigal (Sigi) Yehud, Dolev's widow, was ninth months pregnant on October 7 and gave birth to her daughter a week and a half later. In February, she recounted the horrors of that day: she and her children – Raz, 8, Yotam, 6, and Ron, 4 – hid in the safe of their home in Nir Oz, while her husband went out to provide for the needs of the first. help.

“We were in the hospital from 6:30 a.m., without food and water, while I tried to calm three children and at the same time keep myself under minimal pressure to prevent contractions from starting,” she says , “Dolev wrote to me that morning to be calm, to regulate his breathing and then contact with him was cut off.”

Dolev's daughter, born a week and a half after the massacre, was named Dor. “The most different thing about Dor’s birth was that Dolev wasn’t there,” Sigi said. “He was with me during all other births, he held my hand, calmed me, cut the umbilical cord, took the babies in his hands during the first time already in the delivery room. A father so involved from the first moment.”

The couple had known each other since they were 12 years old, in sixth grade, and the longest time they were apart was when Dolev began his post-military journey before her. After three months, she joined him. “What scares me the most is the idea that he won't know his daughter,” she said in an interview about three months before the discovery of her body was announced.