Hundreds walk in Plainview to honor Omer Neutra, call for the release of Hamas hostages

In his eighth-grade yearbook, Omer Neutra, the Plainview native who would eventually join the Israeli Defense Forces, wrote a poignant, and as it turned out, prescient note: "Leave no one behind." Those words rang true Sunday for several hundred people who gathered in Plainview to walk and remember Neutra, and demand that hostages still held captive by Hamas be returned home.

Until last Monday, when the IDF announced on X that the 21-year-old Neutra had died in the attack Oct. 7, 2023, by Hamas militants across Israel's southern border, his family believed he was being held hostage and hoped to see him again.

On Sunday morning outside Country Pointe Plainview, a condominium complex, supporters of Neutra and others still in captivity began a 1½-mile walk to the Mid-Island JCC as part of a global effort called "Run for Their Lives." Every Sunday since the attacks, supporters of those captured have made the walk, calling for Hamas to release them.

Among the Plainview walkers Sunday was Rabbi Joel Levenson, of the Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, where Neutra became a bar mitzvah at 13. The announcement that he had died in the Oct. 7 attack didn't end the trauma over losing him, Levenson said.

"Omer’s body is being held captive in Gaza," said Levenson, whose synagogue held a service for Neutra last Tuesday before more than 700 attendees.

Some participants Sunday carried signs that read, "Bring them home." Others draped Israeli flags on their backs. Several held teddy bears blindfolded with black ribbon, representing hostages believed still held captive in Gaza.

Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people in the attacks and abducted another 250. Israel’s military responded and has killed more than 45,000. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third believed to be dead.

Hayden Roth, Neutra’s childhood friend, stood at a podium Sunday at the JCC on Manetto Hill Road after the walk, looking out into a somber crowd. The boys met in eighth grade as part of United Synagogue Youth, a Jewish community organization.

After high school, Neutra and Roth planned to attend Binghamton University together once Neutra finished a gap year in Israel. But Neutra deeply connected to his new Israeli friends, Roth said.

" ‘I can’t just abandon them,' " Roth, 23, recalled Neutra telling him. " 'I have to serve with them for Israel.’ "

Neutra joined the IDF, where he eventually became a platoon commander. Roth visited Israel a couple years later, not knowing it would be the last time he would see his childhood friend.

The two celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel independence day — attending a party, singing and dancing in the street and ending the night at the beach.

"It’s crazy to think when I said goodbye to him that night that was the last time I would see him," Roth said. "His roots are in Israel ... That was the place he loved."

Neutra’s parents, Ronen and Orna, were in Israel on Sunday to sit shiva, the seven-day tradition of Jewish mourning.

In a statement released after their son's death, the Neutras described the ordeal as an "unimaginable nightmare."

"The grief is heavy," the statement said, calling on political leaders to return remaining hostages — both living and dead — to their families.

With AP