TEL AVIV — For his funeral, Tsachi Idan’s family chose a place that was sacred to him: Bloomfield Stadium, home to the Hapoel Tel Aviv soccer team.
A VIP season-ticket holder, Idan often attended games with his daughters before Oct. 7, 2023, when he was abducted and his older daughter Maayan murdered during Hamas’ attack on southern Israel.
Idan was killed in captivity and his body was returned to Israel on Wednesday, after 509 days, in the last exchange of hostages required under the current Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
Attended by hundreds of fans, family members and other mourners, the stadium ceremony marked the beginning of Tsachi’s final journey, slated to end with his burial at Kibbutz Einat beside Maayan. The Idan family, via the Hostages and Missing families Forum, invited the public to line the route and wave Israeli flags in solidarity.
Images of Tsachi and his daughters attending past matches were displayed on screens around the stadium. The ceremony began with a minute of silence, but in keeping with the soccer club’s tradition, the crowd was asked to fill the silence with continuous applause.
Idan’s sister, Noam Idan Ben Ezra, addressed the mourners, asking her brother for forgiveness for not saving him after he endured horrors that “even the devil himself could not dream up.”
“I’m sorry that we didn’t bring you back alive on your feet, and not in a coffin.”
Hapoel Tel Aviv fans and family members gathered to pay respect to late Israeli hostage Tsachi Idan during his funeral service at the Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv, Feb. 28, 2025. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)
Reflecting on her brother’s unwavering devotion to Hapoel Tel Aviv, she said it inspired her to begin “thinking in red” after his abduction, in deference to his beloved team’s color. As part of the effort to save Tsachi, she and her family replaced the ubiquitous yellow ribbon symbolizing the hostages’ plight with a red one.
“From the start, I knew our case was different. While the entire country was yellow, I saw the world through red eyes,” she said.
She concluded by calling for the return of the 59 remaining hostages. “Stop dividing us into categories — ‘returned,’ ‘murdered,’ ‘alive,’ ‘man,’ ‘woman,’” she said. “We are one family of 251 hostages, and we must do everything to bring them all home now.”
Yigal Idan, Tsachi’s uncle, also asked for forgiveness for not “turning over the world” to save his nephew.
“I’m sorry that we live in a world where such talented people like you languish in the hellish tunnels of Gaza while vile leaders allow themselves to sentence you to death,” he said. Nevertheless, he vowed to honor Tsachi’s memory by striving for a country free of deep political divides, a place where a “kippah-wearer and a secular person could sit together as equals and have a meaningful conversation.”
Speaking to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Yigal reflected on the three tragedies that had befallen his family over the past 16 months, beginning with Maayan’s murder on Oct. 7; the death of his own son, Guy Idan, who campaigned tirelessly for his cousin’s release and who was killed in a Hezbollah projectile attack in Lebanon last October; and ending with Tsachi’s return in a coffin.
“No words can capture the anger and sadness that we weren’t able to bring him home alive after such a fight,” he said. “There is a small measure of comfort that at least Tsachi is with us now, and that he will be buried next to his daughter.”
He added, “Sadness fills us the whole year, but I hope today, right now, is where it ends. That we will be able to return to grieving, and then to rebuilding.”
Roni Litvak, who grew up with Tsachi in Nahal Oz, said the thought of attending his funeral had devastated the whole community.
“We’ve been on this journey for a year and three months, and it should have had a very different ending,” she said, noting that Tsachi was slated for release in the November 2023 hostage release deal before it ended after 10 days. “Instead, after 510 days, we’re getting him in a coffin.”
Yigal Idan, Tsachi Idan’s uncle, wears the red of Hapoel Tel Aviv for his nephew’s funeral, Feb. 28, 2025. (Deborah Danan)
She refrained from assigning blame to Israel’s leadership, however, saying, “Today is not a day for getting into who should be held accountable.”
Israel’s devoted soccer fans and the teams they support have joined in the national effort to return the hostages, who numbered about 250 immediately after Oct. 7. Fellow fans of Hapoel Jerusalem lined the streets for the funeral of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was murdered in captivity last August; the team later unveiled a jersey in his honor. And this week, Beitar Jerusalem wore orange jerseys in honor of the slain Bibas family.
Dror Yahalom, a Hapoel Tel Aviv fan, said there was “no question” about making the trip to the stadium to say his farewells to Idan.
“Hapoel Tel Aviv is much more than soccer; it really is a family,” he said. “Even though I didn’t know him personally, Tsachi was my brother.”
Idan’s family this week confirmed that they had received signs of life from him during his captivity. His abduction from his home in Nahal Oz had taken place in the early hours of the Hamas-led attack. His eldest daughter, Maayan, was killed while trying to hold the safe room door shut, and Hamas terrorists livestreamed the grisly aftermath on his wife’s Facebook page. Their house, taken over by terrorists, became a temporary holding site for other abducted families. Idan, along with Omri Miran — who remains in captivity — was taken to Gaza along with Judith and Natalie Raanan, American citizens who were freed days later.
Tsachi Idan is survived by his wife, Gali, and three of their four children: Sharon, 15, who was staying with her aunt in Tel Aviv at the time of the attack, Yael, 12, and Shahar, 10.
May Raz, who is not a Hapoel fan, attended after feeling guilty for missing the funeral procession of another fallen hostage, Kfir Bibas, the infant who was buried earlier in the week with his toddler brother and their mother, all killed in Gaza.
“There are no more words,” Raz said. “The sadness is too much. I’ve spent the whole week crying.”