Alon Shamriz

Alon Shamriz, 26, was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7 and taken to Gaza. On December 15, Shamriz and two other Israeli hostages were shot dead in a tragedy by IDF forces in Gaza after they were mistaken by troops for Hamas terrorists.

His body was brought back to Israel by the military, and he was buried in Kibbutz Shefayim on December 17. He is survived by his parents, Avi and Dikla, and his three siblings Ido, Yonatan and Roni.

Shamriz, a computer engineering student at Sapir College, was remembered as an outgoing people person, with a sharp mind and a love of snooker.

His brother, Ido, said at his funeral that for 70 days his family tried desperately to bring him home, “but we didn’t do everything. But you did. You were on your own journey, in the dark without glasses, held by monsters in terrible conditions, without water, without food, without oxygen and without daylight. You survived all this with courage and you waited for redemption. I spoke about you so much in every meeting and every interview, but I didn’t say how brave you are. You always knew what was good for you, and you did things in your way.”

Ido said Alon was only dreaming of the moment: “We would pass the time with all of the things we loved to do together, to watch Maccabi games, watching Louis C.K.’s standup, a little Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen, to play poker. We made sure you would have a high-quality snooker table. I was waiting so much to play with you again, just to tell you that you were the best. A brilliant player with the whole package. The psychologists told me to do things that I love, but what I loved was doing them with you, and now there’s no point to anything.”

We had “so much fun together, we laughed and we made others laugh, even bad experiences we turned into entertainment. Our whole life was like a comedy film, so how is it logical that the end was so tragic?”

His sister, Roni, also spoke at his funeral, saying, “Just a few days ago I stood in front of many people and told them how hard it was without you. We were so sure that the hole in our heart would be refilled.”

“It was supposed to end differently,” she continued. “You’re supposed to be alive. Alon, I am sorry. All this time I can only think, ‘What if?’ But it doesn’t matter anymore… I won’t forget you and what a hero you are.”

His father, Avi, told the Kan public radio that he is convinced his son was the one who figured out how to escape from their Hamas captors and led them through the tunnels, drawing from his time in the military: “My son was a hero.”

“Alon was a brilliant child, a 26-year-old guy, an athlete, a social guy, a man with a good heart,” Avi told Kan. “He started to learn computer engineering, he worked with us in the factory, he was a talent, he was responsible for the logistics. His friends loved him, it’s hard for me to come and speak about him in the past tense, but he was a magical kid, any family would be in love with a kid like this.”
Source: The Times of Israel