RISHON LEZION, Israel -- Hundreds of Israelis lined the streets of Rishon Lezion, south of Tel Aviv, on Sunday to bid farewell to Shlomo Mansour, a hostage of the October 2023 attack whose body was returned from Gaza this week.
Mansour, 85, was seized from near his home in the southern Israeli kibbutz of Kissufim during the unprecedented Hamas-led attack, which sparked a devastating war in Gaza.
Israeli authorities announced last month that he had been killed in the October 7 attack, but that his body was still being held by militants in Gaza.
Last week, Mansour and three other dead hostages were returned to Israel as part of a ceasefire that appeared uncertain on Sunday after the first phase of the deal ended.
READ: Israel endorses plan to extend Gaza truce as first phase draws to close
Born in Iraq, Mansour immigrated to Israel as a child and was among the founders of the kibbutz where he lived with his wife, Mazal Mansour. The two have five children and 12 grandchildren.
"It's a very sad day for us. It's a big loss. My father was a big man with a big heart and we already miss him. It's a big loss," said Batya Mansour, Shlomo's daughter, as she accompanied her father's coffin.
Unlike the funerals of other deceased hostages recently returned, the Mansour family opted to keep the ceremony private, inviting only Israeli President Isaac Herzog to eulogise the elderly man.
"You, dear Shlomo, came to this land -- from the rivers of Babylon to Zion -- with longing, yearning and love for your homeland," Herzog said in a speech shared with the media.
"Around us lie the fields that shaped your life. Your home in Kissufim -- so dear to you, which you built with your own hands.
"I ask you, Shlomo, for forgiveness. Forgiveness for our failure to protect you in the very place that was meant to be your fortress," the president added.
Those who turned out for the funeral procession expressed their sorrow and said more should be done about the remaining hostages.
"I stood here in tears... to accompany Shlomo Mansour on his last journey," said Vardit Roiter, adding that she wanted to see all of those held in Gaza returned home, whether alive or dead.
"Return all of them immediately," Roiter said.
Hamas's attack, the deadliest in Israel's history, resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, of whom 58 remain in Gaza, including 34 Israeli officials say are dead.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says the war has killed more than 48,390 people in the territory, figures which the UN considers reliable.
© Agence France-Presse