The Israeli press described that thousands of people gathered for the funeral in kibutz‘ Be’eri, near the border with the Gaza Strip and from where he was taken by Palestinian militias along with his daughter’s boyfriend, Ofir Engel, and a neighbor, Amit Shani, both of whom have since been released.
A military investigation concluded in 2024 that Yossi Sharabi died in January of the same year when the building where he was captured in the Gaza Strip collapsed after an Israeli Air Force attack nearby.
According to the Jewish Community of Porto, Yossi Sharabi had Portuguese nationality and was certified by this community for belonging to a Sephardic family.
In January 2024, the Portuguese Government mourned his death, while calling for a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
On the eve of the entry into force of the most recent truce, on October 10, the Jewish Community of Porto indicated that, of the total of 48 hostages involved in the agreement between Israel and Hamas, six were included with Portuguese nationality, of which three were alive and three were dead.
As part of the agreement, Hamas returned the last 20 live hostages it held in the Palestinian enclave, but only 15 of the 28 who were dead, citing difficulties in finding the bodies among the rubble of the territory devastated by more than two years of conflict.
According to a source from the Palestinian group speaking to the Spanish news agency EFE, the “only obstacle to completing the recovery of the bodies of the hostages is the lack of capacity and equipment”.
Israeli authorities insist that Hamas knows the location of the bodies and that, at this time, efforts are underway to recover them, although they warn that their patience will not last forever, according to a source in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, cited by the newspaper The Times of Israelwhich indicated the possibility of another delivery on Monday night. Hamas has already confirmed that it will hand over another body.
The Forum of the Families of the Hostages called for the suspension of the next stages of the ceasefire agreement until Hamas returns the last 13 bodies still held in Palestinian territory.
In exchange for the hostages, Israel freed almost two thousand Palestinian prisoners and handed over 195 bodies.
The first phase of the agreement provides for the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave and the access of humanitarian aid to the territory.
The next stage, still to be agreed, foresees the continuation of the Israeli withdrawal, the disarmament of Hamas, as well as the reconstruction and future governance of the enclave.
The war in the Gaza Strip was triggered by attacks led by Hamas on October 7, 2023 in southern Israel, in which around 1,200 people died and 251 were taken hostage.
In retaliation, Israel launched a large-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip, which caused more than 68,000 deaths, according to local authorities controlled by Hamas, the destruction of almost all of the territory’s infrastructure and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.