WATCH: Hundreds of Mourners Attend Funeral of Returned Hamas Hostage Capt. Omer Neutra

JERUSALEM (AP) — Hundreds of mourners attended the military funeral of an Israeli-American soldier whose body was recently returned to the country as part of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

Capt. Omer Neutra was 21 when Hamas militants killed him and abducted his body to Gaza in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that began the war. His remains was released to Israel on Sunday night along with those of two other soldiers killed during the attack.

“Since that day, the old world stopped, turned upside down. We became broken, clinging to your memory, your smile, your voice,” said his father, Ronen Neutra. “Today we finally have a place to be with you, a place to talk to you, a place to love you, even when you’re no longer here. ”

Funeral for Israeli-American hostage Omer Neutra https://t.co/JRpOCbgl87

— Reuters (@Reuters) November 7, 2025

Neutra was also eulogized by Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, and Israel’s President Isaac Herzog.

“He is the son of two nations. He embodied the best of both the United States and Israel. Uniquely, he has firmly cemented his place in history as the hero of two countries,” said Cooper.

אחרי יותר משנתיים, צוות נאוטרה סיים את המשמרת שלו.

היום, ליווינו למנוחת עולמים את סרן עומר מקסים נאוטרה ז״ל, גיבור ישראל, כשהוא שב אל אדמת מדינת ישראל שאהב כל כך, עליה הגן בגופו וברוחו.

כולנו זכינו ללמוד ולהכיר את סיפורו של עומר, חייל בודד שהתגייס לצה״ל במסגרת גרעין צבר והמשיך… pic.twitter.com/TCBAGFBRrS

— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) November 7, 2025

Orna Neutra spoke last and addressed her son’s coffin. “My beloved,” she said, her voice quivering, her eyes shaded by dark sunglasses. “We are all left with the vast space between who you were to us and to the world in your life and what you were yet to become. And with the mission to fill that gap with the light and goodness that you are.”

Omer Neutra was born and raised on Long Island, New York, and moved to Israel to enlist in the military as a volunteer.

After he was abducted, his parents made some 40 trips to Washington to lobby for their son, appeared regularly at protests in the U.S. and Israel and addressed the Republican National Convention last year. For more than a year following the Oct. 7 attack, they believed Omer was still alive. After 14 months, they received word from the military that intelligence indicated he had been killed during the 2023 attack.