Overview
- Bar Asraf, 30, was found with a gunshot wound beside Liron Barda’s grave in Elkana and was pronounced dead at the scene, Israeli media and family members reported.
- His sister said he left a family wedding and she discovered him at the gravesite with a gun nearby, and relatives described years of unresolved grief and close ties to Barda’s family.
- Barda was killed at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, an attack that Israeli authorities say killed roughly 1,200 people and abducted about 250, and the festival site was among the hardest hit.
- Mental-health groups say Asraf’s death underscores how ‘first-and-a-half-degree’ victims—close friends and non-immediate relatives who lived the attacks through calls or messages—lack steady access to state-funded care because benefits are tied to formal survivor recognition.
- Reporting notes a pattern of suicides among Nova-linked people since 2023, advocates warn existing measures such as limited therapy sessions are insufficient, and lawmakers are unlikely to expand coverage before the Knesset reconvenes after the summer recess.