Body of second murdered Israeli hostage recovered from Gaza identified as Idan Shtivi

The body of murdered Israeli Idan Shtivi was returned to Israel as part of the same operation in which the body of Ilan Weiss was also recovered. The identification process of Shtivi at the Institute of Forensic Medicine took several days. He is survived by his parents, three brothers, and his partner.

Idan Shtivi (29) from Kibbutz Ein HaYam, was murdered and abducted on Oct. 7, 2023, after attending the Nova festival in Kibbutz Re’im.

He had come to the party to film his friends who were performing there, but he never made it into the festival grounds. About ten minutes after the rocket sirens sounded, Idan called his partner and told her he was leaving the area to head home. Instead of fleeing alone, Idan picked up two friends and drove north. There, they encountered terrorist gunfire, so they turned south. During that drive, his car was attacked by Hamas terrorists. A few days later, the bodies of the two friends he had tried to save were found, but Idan was declared missing.

On Jan. 4, 2024, the IDF spokesperson informed his family that he had been abducted to Gaza.

His father, Eli, said in an interview with Kan Reshet Bet: “We treated Idan as an abductee from the beginning and knew he had been kidnapped and wounded. I carried out an independent investigation together with my son, and we went out into the field in the first days. The information we found, we passed on to the army.”

On Oct. 7, exactly one year after his abduction, the family was updated that Idan had already been murdered on the morning of Black Saturday, and his body was being held in Gaza.

Idan was a sustainability student. His brother Omri described him in an interview with Kan News as “a man who wants to do good in the world” and added, “He loves extreme sports, we used to do a lot of free diving together. A week before he was kidnapped, he adopted a dog, and he was supposed to join a volunteer delegation in Africa to help children.”

Shtivi was deeply connected to animals and loved nature and photography.