“I come from a bereaved family, and that’s why my mother asked me not to enlist in combat,” said Staff Sergeant S., 21, from Yokneam. “But after my sister was wounded on October 7, I told her there’s no reason not to.”
S., now a squad commander in the Duchifat Battalion of the Kfir Brigade, spoke Thursday morning from IDF operations in Rafah, in southern Gaza, during an interview.
He initially enlisted in a non-combat position as a drone technician in the Israeli Air Force, honoring his mother’s request. She had lost her brother in military service. “I went along with it,” he said. “But the day of the massacre hit me directly. My sister and her partner were critically injured at the Nova festival, and their recovery took a long time.”
That experience led him to transfer to a combat unit. “It wasn’t easy to tell my mom, but in the end she understood that it was important to me — that I was doing this to protect the country,” he said.
Since joining a combat role, S. has participated in fighting in southern Gaza, including operations in southern Gaza City and eastern Khan Younis following the ceasefire. “The war isn’t over yet,” he said. “We’re here defending the yellow line. Hamas tries to get close now and then, but they’ve quickly realized they can’t do much — we’ve thwarted every attempt.”
S. added that soldiers would stay “until all the fallen are brought home.”
The IDF reported Wednesday that its forces continued destroying tunnels in Rafah, including some believed to be hiding around 200 terrorists. In at least two incidents, Israeli troops identified armed Hamas operatives nearby and opened fire, killing about 10 terrorists across Gaza, including three in the Rafah tunnel network.