The sister of Israeli hostage Hanan Yablonka has described the horrifying final hours of her brother’s life, saying he was shot in the chest, taken by terrorists in a truck into Gaza and later killed while lying wounded in a hospital bed.
Yablonka, 42, was later placed in a bag and concealed inside the walls of a Hamas tunnel in northern Gaza, where his body was found alongside the remains of other hostages.
For nearly eight months, his family was left in anguish with no clear answers about what had happened to him, until an Israeli military rescue and recovery operation located the bodies and returned them to their relatives for burial.
Only hours before he was killed, Hanan had made a last-minute choice to attend the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7, 2023 — a decision he had not shared with his family, leaving them without a final farewell.
The Nova Festival became one of the deadliest sites of the October 7 Hamas attack, with 413 people killed and 44 abducted to Gaza, as gunmen also carried out assaults on nearby kibbutzim including Be’eri, Kfar Aza and Nir Oz.
A May report by The Civil Commission, an independent Israeli women’s rights organization established after the October 7 attacks, documented accounts that men and women were subjected to sexual violence, rape and mutilation during the atrocities.
His grieving sister, Avivit Yablonka Abady, was among a group of survivors, former hostages and relatives who travelled to London this month for the launch of the Nova Exhibition, an immersive display tracing the timeline of the massacre as it unfolded.
The exhibition drew more than 40,000 visitors, including former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and senior political figures such as Wes Streeting, David Lammy and Angela Rayner.
Speaking on the penultimate day of the exhibition, which closed on Wednesday, Avivit detailed for the first time how she and her family were wrought with anguish during the many months Hanan was declared ‘missing’ – with authorities only able to confirm after 12 weeks that he had been taken into Gaza.
They would have to wait several months more however to discover he had been murdered.
Hanan Yablonka, 42, was brutally shot on October 7, 2023, before terrorists dragged him to Gaza – and executed him in a hospital bed. His sister Avivit Yablonka Abady waited months for news of what had happened to him
Hanan had made the spontaneous decision to go to the Nova Festival in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, without telling his family or having the chance to say goodbye
One of the Hamas terror tunnels built through Gaza. Hanan’s body was discovered hidden inside the walls of one by special IDF forces in May 2024
For mother-of-three Avivit, 51, who lives in Ramat Hasharon, it was nothing short of a ‘big surprise’ her brother had been anywhere near Nova on October 7 – because he had not told his sisters or parents before setting off in the night with friends.
‘In fact, I never got to see him or say goodbye at all’, said Avivit, regret clinging to her throat.
‘On 6 October was a holiday in Israel, so my brother and my sister went to my parents’ home for dinner, but I went to my friends that night. This dinner is the last time they saw him. Every day I think about this dinner – but of course, nobody knew what would happen the next day.’
At 6.29am on October 7, 2023, the first missiles were spotted in the skies over Israel.
‘We see rockets, but this time felt different, because there were so many of them. This is something that never happened before, so I drove to my parents’ home so that we could be together.
‘We watched the news. We started to cry as we saw what was happening and listened to people talking about what they had seen, what had happened to them.
‘But we were not worried for my brother. We didn’t know he was there at Nova. We thought he was with his friend Lior at his house.’
But after hours of sending messages to check if Hanan was safe, the family’s worst fears were confirmed – and they were told the two men had decided during the early hours of the morning to go to Nova, with a group of other friends joining them.
‘I thought maybe this friend who told us had made a mistake, but when we finally understood Hanan had gone to Nova life changed forever,’ she said.
In the aftermath of the terror attack, the body of Hanan’s friend, Israeli footballer Lior Asulin, 43, alongside the group of friends they had been with were found close to the Mefalsim Junction on Route 232 – around 12 miles away from the Nova festival site.
Hanan’s bullet-ridden car was found nearby, with his keys, phone and ID still inside the vehicle – but there was no trace at all of the divorced father of two.
It would take months of speaking to witnesses, poring over video footage and receiving information from authorities before the family could piece together what had happened to Hanan.
Avivit said: ‘Hanan, his friend Leor, and two women fled towards his car and left the festival. But on the way, a car in front of them came across traffic and turned around – crashing into their car on the way.
‘Hanan left his car to check on the other vehicle when he was suddenly shot by terrorists in the chest. He fell down onto the road. Hanan was badly injured and dying. Then the terrorists turned their guns on his friends and murdered all of them.
‘They put Hanan on a truck and took him to a hospital inside Gaza. But when the doctors saw he was dying, they decided to shoot him – in his head, three times.
‘They put him inside a bag and hid the body inside the walls of a tunnel in Jabalia.’
Avivit pictured at a press conference in March 2024 in London before she discovered what had happened to Hanan
Hanan was one of thousands of people shot by Hamas terrorists as they attempted to flee on the main road from the Nova Festival site on October 7, 2023
Hanan Yablonka was a keen music lover. He had never been to Nova before when he made the spontaneous decision to join friends and head over to the desert festival on October 7, 2023
Nine months later, IDF forces undertook a special operation on 24 May, 2024, in which they recovered the body of Hanan, alongside the remains of 59-year-old grandfather Michel Nisenbaum and Orion Hernandez, 32, the boyfriend of Shani Louk.
‘It’s a miracle they found him,’ continues Avivit. ‘The terrorists put the dead bodies inside bags, inside the walls. The army could have easily destroyed this tunnel without seeing him there – but thankfully they saw the bags, and they took them to Israel.’
Tragically Hanan’s remains had deteriorated to such an extent that authorities could only identify him by his teeth.
‘I still can’t believe this is what happened,’ continued Avivit. ‘And nearly three years on, only now my father understands Hanan is not coming back home.
‘My brother was my little brother, he was so special. We were always together, we were best friends. I smile when I think of him. I smile and cry together.’
At his funeral in May 2024, thousands turned out for a solidarity march for Hanan and the hostages who were yet to return, from his home in north Tel Aviv to the cemetery a mile away.
Tributes were read out for Hanan, who left behind two children aged 12 and 19.
His mother Vered poignantly said at the time: ‘And I ask, how can I bid you farewell? In our worst dreams, we couldn’t imagine something like this.
‘What I would give to hug you, to kiss you, breathe you.’
Avivit said she still grieves for her brother every day, but she receives ‘hope’ in the presence of the former hostages and survivors.
‘To be with them means I can feel my brother,’ she said: ‘They give me the hope, they give me life. I see how they smile, how they dance and I know what happened to them. They are strong so I must be too.
‘They need us – and we need them.
‘It was the best thing to see people finally came back home. Hanan lost his life but he came back home to us, the others came back. That is what makes me happy.’
