Her companion, a special forces reservist, was killed in the attack on October 7, two weeks before their gay “wedding,” which is not recognized in Israel.
Since then, Omer Ohana has achieved the same rights as married couples for the partners of deceased homosexual soldiers.
On November 6, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, changed the wording and granted state assistance only to widows and widowers of married soldiers.
From now on, “all people who live together, gay and straight, can receive widow’s benefits,” summarizes Yorai Lahav-Hertzanu, an elected official from the centrist Yesh Atid party who pushed for the amendment’s passage.
The partners of hostages or missing people could also benefit from this, regardless of their gender, said the MP, who welcomed “a big step towards equality”.
AFP
The result of the fight led by 28-year-old Omer Ohana a few weeks after the death of his partner Sagi Golan. The two reservists had been living together for six years and had planned to “get married” on October 20th in Costa Rica before their honeymoon.
“It was more of a party with a ceremony,” explains Omer, who met AFP at her apartment in Herzliya (center), because “same-sex partners cannot marry in Israel,” where only religious marriages take place.
However, a gay marriage concluded abroad can be recognized there.
Intended for the celebrations, cotton flowers eventually adorned a funeral wreath. Sagi, 30, was killed in fighting at Kibbutz Beeri on the night of October 7-8.
When the two men woke up and learned of the surprise attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on the morning of October 7, this reservist captain of the anti-terrorist unit Lotar “jumped out of bed and after a minute or two he was already wearing his uniform,” says Omer.
AFP
There, 80 km further south, the kibbutzes around the Gaza Strip are Hamas’ target. “I made him a coffee for the road, we kissed. I told him not to be a hero.
The lovers had agreed to “send each other a heart on WhatsApp every hour to make sure everything is okay,” explains Omer in a hushed voice. “At midnight I received the last heart. He did not respond on Sunday.
Also mobilized, but on the northern front, on the border with Lebanon, Omer spent the following days moving heaven and earth to obtain information. Vain.
Until officers knocked on the door on the night of October 10th to 11th. “They didn’t have to talk. It was very clear.”
In Beeri, Sagi was killed after “taking families out of their shelters” and rescuing “a unit under fire,” Omer says, sobbing.
He was “already dead” from a blow to the chest when his unit recovered his body two hours later.
Devastated, Omer also has to deal with “bureaucratic” concerns. An officer “didn’t recognize me as Sagi’s partner,” he says. He asked the army for explanations and the soldier was sanctioned.
In a country where sexual minorities have gained increasing visibility and rights in recent decades, Sagi and Omer “never experienced discrimination”.
“But we are still not equal in life,” he states bitterly.
In late October, Israeli media reported that amid his grief, the widower had to fight with the government to qualify for financial, psychological and medical support provided by law.
At the beginning of November, the Knesset approved it. But his fight doesn’t end there: he now wants to advocate for “a series of eight laws” that, once passed, will guarantee “absolute equality in Israel” for LGBT people.
Omer Ohana received “thousands of messages of support” and stressed that Israelis have been “very united” since the October 7 attack, which left about 1,200 victims, mostly civilians.
In retaliation, Israel declared a war to “annihilate” Hamas and relentlessly bombed the Gaza Strip. According to the Hamas government, these attacks involved at least 13,000 people, the majority of them civilians.
Omer Ohana today sticks to Sagi’s “dream” of “becoming a father” through surrogacy, which has been legal for gay couples in Israel since 2021.
The deceased’s sperm was frozen. Sagi is no more, but his lover will do anything to ensure he has a child.
– A report by Pierrick Yvon