Shira Eylon, 23, from Rishon Lezion, was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Supernova festival on October 7.
Eylon was attending the desert rave with her childhood friend, Amit Lahav, and the pair were both killed, their bodies found days later in the forest.
She is survived by her parents, Avi and Reva, and sisters Adar and Stav.
“Her body had been lying in the forest for five days,” Adar told Time magazine about her sister’s death. “It took them almost a week to recognize her. It took them another day to bring her here so we could bury her. So she was dead for six days before we could bury her. Even when they came to tell us that she died, they didn’t tell us how or when.”
Eylon had planned to move to Beersheba and start a degree in psychology at Ben Gurion University just a week or two after the Hamas onslaught.
“She just started life, you know?” Adar told the magazine. “She was just going to this party to celebrate life. The people who were there were young adults. It was kind of like Woodstock, where everybody’s into art and peace and love. They had nothing to do with this war. And I just don’t understand what kind of monster can come and attack civilians.”
Shira’s father, Avi, traveled with an Israeli delegation to Rome a couple weeks after the attack, meeting with Italian ministers: “I want to tell you the worst thing a father can say about his daughter — when they knocked on our door [to tell her she was dead] it was a relief. In Israel there are things worse than death,” he said, according to the Maariv newspaper. “We will carry this pain until our death.”
Avi added that “Shira was killed because she was Jewish. We’re almost 80 years after the Holocaust, and where have we gotten? The hatred is the same hatred… I came here to say one thing: Wake up. If not for our kids, then for your kids.”
Speaking to NBC News, Adar described her sister as being very special, independent and mature.
“I feel like everybody has a part in this world, and her part was to spread kindness,” she said.
Adar wrote on Instagram that Shira, a vegan, had just returned from a trip to India to study yoga: “She was a gentle and sensitive girl, who wants peace… she loved nature, volunteered at an animal shelter and loved to travel.”
She wrote that over the past couple of years, Shira “found herself, understood who she is, and what she wanted to be, and only enjoyed laughter, music and freedom.”Source: The Times of Israel