The Prime Minister's Office announced Saturday morning that following the completion of the identification process by the National Center of Forensic Medicine, in cooperation with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, IDF representatives informed Lior Rudaeff's family that their loved one had been brought back to Israel and formally identified.
Rudaeff was returned to Israel late Friday through the International Committee of the Red Cross. Hamas, the terrorist organization that abducted him, claimed he had been found during searches in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
According to the IDF, the information and intelligence in its possession indicate that Rudaeff, deputy security coordinator and a member of the emergency squad in Nir Yitzhak, was killed while defending the kibbutz on the morning of October 7, 2023. His body was taken by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization to Gaza. On May 7, 2024, he was officially declared dead.
Rudaeff is survived by his wife, four children, three grandchildren, his father, a sister and a brother.
He immigrated to Israel from Argentina in 1969 and had lived in Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak ever since with his wife, Yaffa. The couple were married for 54 years and had four children: Noam, Nadav, Bar and Ben, the latter of whom survived the attack at the Re'im music festival.
