Ela Haimi has faced the heart-wrenching task of laying her husband to rest once already, but neither she nor their young children found the closure they desperately needed.
The coffin she buried was empty, save for her husband Tal’s helmet. His remains still linger in Gaza, where they remain to this day.
When Donald Trump unveiled his peace plan, Ela felt a glimmer of hope. The plan mandated that all living and deceased individuals be returned by noon on Monday.
However, that hope was dashed as the deadline saw only four out of the anticipated 28 bodies returned that evening. By Tuesday, three more were sent back, with others expected later, prolonging the agony for families like Ela’s who continue to wait.
“It’s very tense,” Ela shares, gently swaying in a hanging chair on the porch of her Nir Yitzhak home in southern Israel.
The mother of four adds, “We are constantly watching the news to see if Tali’s name appears on the list.”
‘It can be any minute, maybe any day, maybe any week or month – or maybe never. So we are waiting.’
The mechanical engineer – a man ‘of action and doing, not talking’ – was commander of the community’s first response team and ran to fight Hamas when they breached the gates on October 7.
Ela Haimi has already buried her husband once, but it didn’t bring her or their young children the closure they needed. Pictured: Ela with a photograph of her late husband, Tal Haimi
Aside from his helmet, the coffin was empty and the body of her strong, quiet husband Tal (right) was still in Gaza, where it remains today
Tal was killed and his body taken to Gaza, but initially the family was told he was a living hostage as his phone showed he was in Khan Younis. Pictured: Ela with her late husband, Tal Haimi, and their children
Tal was killed and his body taken to Gaza, but initially the family was told he was a living hostage as his phone showed he was in Khan Younis.
After two months though the IDF found his helmet and confirmed his death. It was a shattering revelation made even worse as Ela was pregnant with their fourth child.
‘It was a very hard moment,’ the HR manager, who was at that time living in a hotel in Eilat with twins Einav and Nir, 11, and son Udi, eight.
‘My children didn’t want to come to meet me,’ she said.
‘They understood immediately. Tal’s cousin had to carry one in his hands. A nine year old kid…’
In an attempt to bring herself and the children some closure, she arranged a funeral ceremony to bury the helmet at a cemetery in Revivim.
‘It was a hard day,’ Ela says. ‘My girl, she didn’t want to go to the cemetery. She stayed outside. ‘When I was in the funeral it felt like it was a real funeral. But the grave is empty…’
It is a decision Ela regrets – as she now faces burying her husband a second time, and this time she knows exactly how painful it will be.
After two months though the IDF found his helmet and confirmed his death. It was a shattering revelation made even worse as Ela was pregnant with their fourth child
Ela says she now prioritises her children in everything – as her husband, who did much of the childcare, would always tell her she needed to spend more time with them. Pictured: Ela with her late husband, Tal Haimi, on their wedding day
Pictured: Picture shows – Ela at the funeral of her late husband, Tal Haimi with their children
‘I feel a little bit ridiculous to do it twice,’ she says. ‘I don’t have the power…
‘I don’t like to smile all the time and to be kind for other people. Especially those who are not that close to me.
‘But I will need to smile to everyone… I prefer to stay alone, in my home.’
Months after the service, her fourth child, Lotan, was born in May 2024.
‘It was very hard,’ Ela said. ‘I miss his quiet. I felt I needed someone who will sit next to me and be quiet.’
Now Ela and the children have returned to their home, and every step her youngest takes is both a blessing and a torture.
‘I think the happy moments are the worst for me,’ she says. ‘Because I don’t have someone to share it with.
‘He’s walking, he’s talking, he’s sitting. It’s something that the parents are excited about, doing something new, and he’s not here.’
The waiting is made all the more cruel by the proximity of Tal’s remains to her.
The peaceful kibbutz in southern Israel where they were both born lies just a few hundred metres from Gaza where her husband’s killers keep his body.
‘A lot of the time I’m looking there,’ says Ela, who started dating her husband when they were tending to the cows on the kibbutz together at 17.
‘And I’m asking, Tal – where are you?’
Her children also ask after their father.
‘They are living in an environment of uncertainty,’ she says.
‘One of them even asks sometimes – maybe he’s not dead? They know 90 per cent that he is dead, but there is that 10 per cent.
‘The question marks are here. It doesn’t let me move on with my life.’
Ela says she now prioritises her children in everything – as her husband, who did much of the childcare, would always tell her she needed to spend more time with them.
‘I’m doing it now,’ she says. ‘Also I think that I am not afraid anymore. Nothing can happen to me – because the worst has happened.’
Ela was braced for not every dead body to return on Monday, and is remarkably understanding of the logistical difficulties in returning them all quickly.
She also doesn’t take issue with the fact one body on Tuesday was that of a Palestinian, not a hostage.
All of this she can bear, she says, so long as in the end Tal and all the other bodies are returned.
‘Ok, the worst has happened,’ Ela said. ‘But we are standing and we will move on and we will have a good life.
‘But I’m not there yet… I’m waiting.’
Shlomi Nahumson, CEO of the IDF Widows and Orphans Organisation which supports Ela other IDF widows, said: ‘This war will not truly be over until every fallen IDF soldier comes home for burial.’
