When Alex Lobanov, 32, was murdered by Hamas terrorists last week, the Israeli hostage left behind a baby boy whom he never had the opportunity to meet. His wife, Michal, gave birth to the couple’s second son, Kai, in February even as she was campaigning tirelessly to free her husband throughout his 11-month captivity in Gaza.

Ms. Lobanov, who met Alex at a restaurant where they worked together when she was 17, frequently posted on social media and gave numerous interviews to the international and Israeli press, advocating for the return of her husband and the other hostages taken during the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack.

In an interview with The New York Sun in late December, the 28-year-old Ms Lobanov, of Ashkelon, described her deep anxiety over her husband’s life. “I’m praying that Alex will be returned home to me and to our family,” she told the Sun. “The pain that I felt on October 7 after finding out what happened to my husband gets worse each day that Alex hasn’t returned.”

Lobanov was kidnapped at the Nova music festival at Kibbutz Reim, where he worked as a bar manager, when Hamas terrorists stormed in, slaughtering 360 festival goers and kidnapping 40 people.

On Alex’s 300th day of captivity, Michal wrote in a Facebook post addressing her husband that her 2-year-old son, Tom, woke up that morning screaming, “I want my daddy.” She described breaking down and crying. Yet the young woman found the courage yet again to promise her son that she would do everything possible to get his father home. “We are trying to do everything to get you home but I’m sorry that we haven’t yet succeeded,” she wrote in the early August post.

A few weeks later, Alex and five other Israeli hostages — Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Ori Danino, Almog Sarusi, and Eden Yerushalmi — were executed by their Hamas captors. According to the Israel Health Ministry, the six Israelis were shot multiple times at close range by Hamas guards while IDF troops closed in the Rafah tunnel complex where they were held. The Hamas terrorists had fled the scene, as Israeli soldiers recovered the bodies of the six Israelis on Saturday.

During Alex Lobanov’s funeral at Ashkelon early this week, Michal tearfully eulogized her husband: “For the past 11 months, I hoped and told everyone that you would return. How am I speaking about you in the past tense?”

“You are our one and only hero. Tom and Kai are the biggest gifts that you left us. You can see how much Kai looks like you,” she said.

“You were the best father in the world, the best husband in the world, the best man that I knew … thank you for the merit of being a mother and your wife,” she added.

Alex’s mother, Oxana Lobanov, also spoke before her son was laid to rest: “I’m a handicapped woman and I did everything for him. But I did not do TV interviews, I did not speak [publicly]. I was afraid that I would say something that would cause [them] to do bad to him. I don’t want anyone to be in my shoes.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu also spoke with Oxana and Alex’s father, Grigory Lobanov, on September 1 and apologized that the state of Israel did not succeed in returning Alex and the other five hostages alive.  

“I would like to tell you how much I regret and request forgiveness for not succeeding in bringing Sasha back alive,” the prime minister told the parents, using Alex’s nickname in a conversation with the Lobanovs.

The Lobanov family had initially hoped that Russian intervention would help get Alex Lobanov freed, as the hostage was a dual Russian-Israeli citizen. Indeed, the Israeli prime minister’s military secretary, Major-General Roman Gofman, had returned on Sunday morning from a visit to Moscow, where he had discussed Alex Lobanov and the other hostages with the goal of advancing a deal to free them. Mr. Netanyahu himself had approached President Putin about Alex Lobanov and the other hostages last year.

“It is true that God takes the best,” Michal said at her husband’s funeral. “But I want to focus on the love you had for your fellow man, your love of life and freedom, the freedom that was taken from you October 7 by those evil people.”