‘Losing a child breaks you, and you remain broken,’ say parents of October 7 victim Jake Marlowe

A few months later, he announced to Michael and Lisa that he was going to make move to Israel, telling them: “I don’t like this country anymore, I don’t feel safe in this country anymore, and I don’t see a future in this country anymore.”

Jake Marlowe (Photo: Facebook)[Missing Credit]

“That was Jake, age 24, in 2021...Look now at what’s happened to our country. There’s a visionary,” said Michael.

Jake was “not a conformist,” said his dad, with a chuckle. He didn’t move to Tel Aviv, the more obvious choice for a twentysomething new oleh. Instead, he went up north, to Ma’alot, the hometown of a friend, Shlomi Ziv, whom he had met on social media. “He was really living his best life,” said Lisa. “Cigarettes, beer, Israeli politics, coffee. You name it, he did it.”

“Our phone call came at 4:20 or 4:30 [in the morning] our time, 6:30 their time. He said he was [at Nova], a lot of rockets going off, many uniformed IDF, police... It was pandemonium. He said he would call us back when it calmed down. But that call never came,” said Michael, soberly recalling the moments which led up to them being informed their son was missing after the attack. “That was basically when our lives changed.”

Michael “insisted on searching for Jake myself”, who was still missing days later, getting on a flight arranged by the Israeli Consulate in the UK on October 10, after his commercial flight was cancelled due to the war.

“I’m an Arsenal fan, so was Jakey,” Michael fondly recalled, as he described the team’s yellow 1971 T-shirt that he wore during his travels – “the last thing Jake ever bought me.”

Jake Marlowe, who was murdered at Nova on October 7[Missing Credit]

A knock on the door of a friend’s flat, where Michael was staying in Tel Aviv, marked the arrival of Simon Waters, the UK ambassador to Israel

Waters brought the news that they suspected Jake had been taken as a hostage into Gaza, and “my being the fool that I was, was delighted. He wasn’t missing, he wasn’t dead. He might have been injured, but he was alive,” said Michael, despite noting that Lisa felt differently. “Being a hostage, held by Hamas, is not a holiday,” said Lisa.

A few hours later, there was another knock on the door, remembered Michael, as “in walked two IDF solders, and two civilians”.

After a short while, one of the soldiers passed on the tragic news to Michael that their son, Jake, was killed in the attack. There was a long pause before Michael continued: “You never, ever want to hear that, ever.

“The sound of Lisa wailing uncontrollably, when I couldn’t be there to hug her, to hold her, to kiss her, to console her, will live with me for the rest of my life.”

As the talk reached its emotional climax, Jake’s final moments were then outlined by Michael. “He chose not to run; he chose to save people in this four-by-four buggy, and he shepherded countless partygoers to safety; three, four, five times, until he himself saw that they were being overrun by terrorists.”

Jake then got into a nearby car in an attempt to escape, before the driver was shot in the head by a terrorist, leaving the car to spin out of control. Jake, the last out of four to leave the vehicle, was shot in the upper chest as he was getting out. “He then started crawling across the desert sand to what he hoped was safety. He had so much to live for.”

With bitterness in his voice, Michael then told the audience of how during his crawl to safety, “a scum shot [Jake] a further eight times”.

Lisa Marlowe speaking in front of a tree planted in memory of her son, Jake, in Finchley, and a bench in memory of Shiri,Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who were abducted on October 7 and murdered in captivity (Photo: Gaby Wine)[Missing Credit]

Jake’s friend, Shloimi Ziv, whose family “adopted” Jake when he was living in Israel, was taken hostage to Gaza from the festival, leaving behind his wife and two sisters, with whom Michael and Lisa remained in constant contact throughout their ordeal. “Talking to a hostage family is very, very different. We knew, shockingly, Jake’s finality. They didn’t,” said Michael, reflecting on the uncertainty which marred their lives while Shlomi was held captive. Miraculously, Shlomi was one of four hostages rescued in a daring IDF operation in June 2024 and was shortly afterwards reunited with his sisters and wife.

Michael and Lisa would unfortunately not experience a joyous reunion. “To lose a child...breaks you. Nowhere is it in anybody’s book of dreams...that parents have to bury a child. It breaks you, and you remain broken. We’re at the stage now, almost three years down the line, where Jake’s friends are getting engaged, married, having children...We won’t have that,” said Michael.

One of the dogs named after Jake Marlowe at the Nova memorial in Israel (Photo: Israel Guide Dog Centre)[Missing Credit]

Lisa and Michael have set up The Jakey M Project in memory of Jake and his life, which is, among other projects, raising money for the Israel Guide Dog Centre to train guide dogs, PTSD service dog and emotional support dogs. So far, they have raised enough money for three dogs, one of which is called Jake and another Marlowe.

Jakey M Project participants set up a party in London for batmitzvah girls whose fathers were killed on or since October 7 (Photo: Daniel Ben-David)[Missing Credit]

Towards the end of the talk, Lisa emotionally reads out a poem that she had prepared for the occasion. “I am his eyes, he is my wings. I am his voice, but he is my spirit. I am his mother forevermore, and he is my guardian angel.” The poem served as a poignant reminder that, behind every headline and statistic, there remains an immeasurable personal loss.

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