Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers will be on assignment in Israel through Oct. 14.

HERZLIYA, Israel — Hundreds of people on Tuesday attended a memorial service for a gay Israel Defense Force major who was killed while fighting Hamas militants in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Sagi Golan, 30, was at home in the Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya with his fiancé, Omer Ohana, when the militant group launched its surprise attack against from the Gaza Strip.

Ohana told the Washington Blade during an interview after the memorial service that Golan woke him up at around 6:30 a.m. after rocket sirens began to sound.

“We ran to the shelter in our house,” he said. “After that we just opened the news and the headline was ‘Hamas terrorist attack in Israel.'”

Ohana said people in the Israeli communities around Gaza were “begging for help.” Golan started to pack his IDF uniforms, and Ohana made him coffee.

“10 minutes later we were already at the doorstep kissing goodbye,” Ohana recalled. “That was the last time I saw him.” 

“I told him not to be a hero,” he said. “He gave me a kiss, he told me we’re getting married in a week, don’t be silly.”

Golan deployed to Be’eri, a kibbutz that is near the border between Israel and Gaza.

He sent Ohana a heart emoji message to him via WhatsApp every hour “just to reassure he’s there.” Golan sent his last message to his fiancé and “to anyone” at 12:18 a.m. on Oct. 8, 2023.

Ohana told the Blade the next three days were “unbearable suffering, searching for Sagi under every rock in Israel, at every hospital emergency room, at every ‘hamal’ (IDF war room.)”

“We went everywhere, we did everything we could to find him,” said Ohana.

An IDF officer three days later “knocked on our door” to notify Sagi’s family that he had been killed. The officer did not speak with Ohana because the IDF did not recognize him as Sagi’s partner.

(The couple had planned to marry — virtually — in Utah on Oct. 14. Israel recognizes same-sex marriages that are legally performed abroad. The couple’s marriage celebration was to have taken place on Oct. 20.)

“I asked for something, and they said I had to request his parents,” Ohana told the Times of Israel. “It made me so angry. I was the one who loved him. But I’m not taken into account. And he wasn’t taken into account.”

The Israeli government says Hamas militants killed roughly 1,200 people, including upwards of 360 partygoers at the Nova Music Festival near Re’im, a kibbutz that is a few miles southwest of Be’eri. The Israeli government says the militants also kidnapped more than 200 people on Oct. 7.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed more than 41,000 people in the enclave since Oct. 7.

The International Criminal Court in May announced it plans to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh. 

Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, said the five men have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel. (A suspected Israeli airstrike on July 31 killed Haniyah while he was in the Iranian capital of Tehran to attend Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s inauguration.)

Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel have designated a terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for an Oct. 1 attack at a Tel Aviv light rail station that left seven people dead and more than a dozen others injured. A Bedouin man on Sunday killed an Israel Border Police officer and injured 10 others when he attacked a bus station in Beersheva in southern Israel.

Reuters on Friday reported the Lebanese Health Ministry said Israeli airstrikes in Beirut and elsewhere in the country over the last two weeks have killed more than 2,000 people. 

Iran on Oct. 1 launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in response to an Israeli airstrike in the Lebanese capital a few days earlier killed Hassan Nasrallah, the long-time leader of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group. 

Hamas and Hezbollah on Monday launched fired rockets that triggered sirens in Tel Aviv and surrounding areas. The Houthi rebels in Yemen on Oct. 7 also launched missiles and drones that prompted additional warnings in central Israel. 

Israel’s air defense system intercepted almost all of the rockets. 

This reporter heard two of the interceptions — the first at around 11 a.m. Israel time (4 a.m. ET) and the second at around 11 p.m. Israel time (4 p.m. ET). The second interception shook the building in which this reporter has been staying.

Ohana was building a bench for children in a garden that Golan planted in Bat Yam, a city that is just south of Tel Aviv, when the first sirens went off.

‘If we are equal in death, we should be equal in life too’

Ohana, with the support of the Aguda, the Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel, and other Israeli advocacy groups began to lobby the Knesset to amend the country’s Bereaved Families Law to recognize LGBTQ widows and widowers of fallen servicemembers. Lawmakers last November approved the changes.

“Sagi became a symbol for the LGBTQ+ community in Israel,” Ohana told the Blade. “With Sagi as a symbol, we were able to pass the amendment in the Israeli Knesset.” 

“It wasn’t me,” he added. “I couldn’t have done it if Sagi wasn’t becoming a symbol. Having a gay hero in Israel is something new, something new for the community here.”

Aguda Chair Yael Sinai Biblash was among those who attended Golan’s memorial service.

She described the campaign to change the Bereaved Families Law as “a big effort, and a big success.” 

“I hope that people understand that if we are equal in death we should be equal in life too,” said Sinai.

Gay Israeli pop star performs at Golan’s funeral

Golan had written his wedding vows on his phone.

Ohana told the Blade that his fiancé at 11:44 p.m. on Oct. 7 opened the memo on which they were written, and read them. Golan was shot less than 90 minutes later.

“I imagine Sagi having a notification that the event is about to be completed, because it was 10 until midnight for a whole day at the seventh of October, and just having a moment with himself, remembering love, having a good thought right before he died.” he said. “Knowing Sagi thought those happy thoughts just an hour before he died, saving Israeli citizens from this terror attack is filling me with pride in Sagi. That’s why he became a symbol. That’s why he’s a gay symbol.

Ivri Lider, a gay Israeli pop star, was to have performed at the couple’s wedding celebration. He instead performed at Golan’s funeral.

סרן במיל׳ שגיא גולן ז״ל שנפל בעת קרב בקיבוץ בארי נגד מחבלי החמאס, היה מיועד להתחתן עם בן זוגו עומר בעוד שבוע לצלילי השיר ״זכיתי לאהוב״. הערב הזמר עברי לידר הגיע לבצע את השיר בהלוויתו. שגיא ירד ביום שבת, מבלי לחכות לקריאה לקיבוץ בארי כדי להציל חיים ומשפחות נצורות. pic.twitter.com/epOVTVCMnY

— האגודה למען הלהט"ב בישראל | The Aguda (@AgudaIsraelLGBT) October 12, 2023

“[Sagi] was very special,” said Ohana. “He was very special to all of us.”