It’s been over a year since Yael Adar lost her son Tamir Adar as he battled Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023. But despite her pain, Adar said she cannot mourn her son until his remains, seized and dragged to Gaza, are brought back to Israel and buried.

“Mourning has a kind of order: You get the notice, a funeral, the shiva, prayers, a grave,” Adar told an audience at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square on Sunday night. “In Nir Oz, Be’eri, Kfar Aza, it’s not just loss of the person but the place — the place you belonged to. Every morning that a mother gets that call about her son [killed in combat], my heart is with her, but there’s a little bit of jealousy because his room is still there, their house is still there. We sat shiva without a body and without a home.”

Adar was one of several family members who participated in Mourning Without a Grave, a panel discussion on the official Hebrew-date memorial day for those lost on October 7. Speakers included relatives of four of at least 36 victims of October 7 whose bodies are still held in Gaza.

Bar Godard, the daughter of Manny and Ayelet Godard who were killed in Kibbutz Be’eri, spoke about her parents. Her father, whose body was taken by terrorists to Gaza, was a loving parent and grandfather who was a lifeguard and in charge of the pool at the kibbutz.

Every season at the pool was a celebration of life, said Godard, who was also living in Be’eri at the time of the October 7 attack.

Godard was seven months pregnant and hiding in her fortified room with her husband and toddler on October 7 when her mother called at 8 a.m. that morning, crying hysterically that Manny had been killed and she was hiding in the bushes as their house had been set on fire by the terrorists.

Godard knew she couldn’t leave her house because of the terrorists roaming the kibbutz, but felt sure her mother would be saved. It took several days until she and her brothers verified that their mother was killed later that day, while their father’s body was snatched to Gaza.

“There’s something in death and in this massive event that’s a little like a tsunami wave. There’s nothing left to hold onto,” said Godard. “You don’t even have your home left, or the grave. You’re left with nothing, holding onto air, to every memory. It’s a feeling of emptiness.”

The other mourners echoed Godard’s sense of loss for loved ones who still can’t be fully mourned, a year after the massive terrorist attack that killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage to Gaza.

Roy Baruch didn’t know his brother Uriel Baruch was going to the Nova desert rave, and only found out later that it was a last-minute plan hatched when Uriel was given tickets the day before.

The father of two was first considered missing and then designated a hostage, which made the family happy, said Roy Baruch, “because there was still a chance he was alive.”

Only in March 2024 was the family was notified that Uriel had been killed on October 7, with his body held in Gaza.

“Not everyone wanted to sit shiva,” said his brother, noting the family’s religiously observant members couldn’t formally mourn Uriel without his body.

Last week, still lacking a grave, Uriel’s friends, who have enveloped the family in loving care for months, arranged a memorial of sorts at the Nova site on the eve of the Simhat Torah holiday. Hundreds of people came to mourn Uriel and recite the traditional mourner’s prayer, “because we don’t have another place to say it,” said Roy Baruch.

Michel Illouz, the father of Guy Illouz, 26, who was wounded, kidnapped and died of his wounds in Gaza, believes Israel will never recover as a society unless all the hostages — alive or dead — are brought back.

“This wound will remain open, we’ll still be bleeding,” said Illouz.

He only found out 27 days after the attack that his missing son had been taken hostage from the Nova site.

“I’m not religious man, but I prayed day and night that my son was taken alive to Gaza,” he said.

Guy called his father early in the morning of October 7 as he was attempting to escape the attack, telling his father that he loved him and was calling to say goodbye, with the sound of gunfire in the background.

Michel Illouz jumped in his car and drove south, reaching an intersection close to his son’s location. It was already a scene of death and destruction, with bodies being collected and loaded up on pickup trucks.

“I saw the catastrophe, I saw that there was no army present, just locals organizing,” said Illouz, who remained at the scene for four hours, checking each carload of bodies for his son.

“It’s hard because my story is mine and it’s painful and there are stories far worse than mine, with entire families killed,” said Illouz. “But I don’t have my son’s body.”

It was a former hostage, Maya Regev, released during the November ceasefire, who told the Ilouz family that she had been hospitalized next to Guy for two days and watched him take his last breaths before his body was placed in a bag.

“That’s the only thing we have,” said Illouz. “Maya’s account.”

Adar and Illouz sat next to one another, two mourning parents in agreement that the Israeli government must succeed in the next round of negotiations with Hamas for the release of the hostages.

Adar said her son deserves a burial after going out to protect his community and the country’s border.

“We have to bring this to a close… I need him here in order to close this chapter,” she said.

Adar said she spent part of Sunday at Kibbutz Nir Oz, where her son was living with his family and where she had raised her children before moving out several years ago.

“Tamir had two little children and his kids will grow up in a place where they were abandoned [by the state], where their father was taken and wasn’t brought back,” said Adar. “These are the citizens of tomorrow, and we have to fight because these kids are looking at us.”

At the end of the panel discussion, singer Riki Gal came onstage to sing “Someone,” the classic Matti Caspi song with lyrics by Jonathan Geffen.

“I used to love these mourning songs, the songs we hear on Memorial Day,” said Adar. “Now I’m part of the mourning songs — and no one asked my permission to sacrifice my son.”

Gal first stooped to hug Adar before singing, as Adar mouthed the words beside her: “Someone, someone is concerned, concerned for me from up above.”