Hagi Avni

Hagi Avni, 50, a member of Kibbutz Be’eri’s local security team, was killed fighting off a Hamas invasion of the kibbutz on October 7.

His friend watched him be killed that day, but his body was not recovered and identified for some time, and he was buried on October 24 in Kibbutz Revivim in the south.

He is survived by his wife, Adi, their children Reef, 18, Yam, 17, Bar, 14, Gav, 12 and Eliel, 8. He is also survived by his parents, Pnina and Amotz, and siblings Adi, Lihel, Dan and Sahar, as well as two step-siblings, Omri and Ayelet. A third step-sibling, Chen Even, who lived next door to the Avni family, was also murdered on October 7 along with his wife, Rinat and two of their children, Alon and Ido.

Avni was retroactively recognized as a fallen soldier with the rank of sergeant major in the reserves.

An obituary on the kibbutz website said that Avni ran his own business, “Hagigi,” in which he worked as an event designer and planner, in particular with the use of plants and flowers. He was always “go-with-the-flow and spontaneous… a unique man, incredibly creative. He always volunteered first to help and fulfill any request.”

His wife, Adi, wrote on Facebook that: “Hagi, the longing for you is unbearable. As the days pass, I feel the loss and the understanding that you’re not coming back, that it wasn’t a dream, it’s a nightmare.”

“My comfort is our wonderful children,” she added. “In each one of them you left a different piece of yourself, and when they are all with me, I feel you. A broken heart is a whole heart. I’m sorry I didn’t say it enough: I love you.”

His son, Reef, posted on Instagram more than two months after his father’s death, recalling their trip together to Iceland just a week before the Hamas onslaught that took his life.

“Dad always told me that it’s more important to rejoice over what you manage to do in life, than to be sad about what you miss out on,” wrote Reef. “We never imagined that this would be our last journey together, and I am so happy that we managed to have this crazy experience.”

In Iceland, he wrote, “we saw the most beautiful places in the world. Volcanoes, icebergs, waterfalls and even the northern lights. On October 6, we celebrated Dad’s 50th birthday at home, it was one of the happiest days of his life — night and day from what happened the very next day.”

Reef, a budding photographer, said that his father was “someone who spoke about death, he wasn’t afraid of it, he just knew it would come sometime. That helped him have as much fun as possible, with things that did good for him and the family. He always wanted to take part in as many experiences as possible, to do the most good for those around him and to enjoy life.”

“Dad taught me many things that I will take with me for the rest of my life,” he continued. “One of them is that we get one chance to live here, and you have to take advantage of the good things. So despite the pain, I know that what he would want most was that I would keep doing what I love.”
Source: The Times of Israel