“Keep smiling all the time”: The story of Capt. Kfir Franco, the fighter who knew how to listen
The story of Capt. Kfir Franco, who fell in battle in the northern Gaza Strip on Nov. 15, 2023, begins with a baby with big blue eyes and curls that were impossible to ignore. “He was full, a full baby,” his mother, Muriel, recalls with longing. “Chubby, beautiful, smiling. A truly beautiful baby.”
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Kfir was the second of three children, the “sandwich” between Elior, the eldest, and Tair, the youngest. His father, Haim, recalls the moment he came into the world. “I was right there in the labor room. I cut his umbilical cord,” he says. “We did not want to know the baby’s sex before the birth. We said, ‘Whoever comes is welcome,’ and we received Kfir. It was so moving to see a son after a daughter.”
Although he was the middle child, Kfir found his own unique place at home. “He always said, ‘I’m a sandwich,’ but in the end he was the ‘king’ between two girls,” Muriel says with a smile mixed with sadness.
From his youth, Kfir knew how to choose his path with determination, guided by his love for the country. When he entered ninth grade, he decided to attend a specific yeshiva for one reason only. “That is where they do the Israel National hiking Trail,” his mother says. “That was what interested him, to get on a trail, to be in nature, to be with friends. That was his life’s purpose.”
The fighter who knew how to listen
Alongside his love of open spaces, Kfir had a rare quality: he knew how to listen truly. His sister Elior describes a brother who knew how to make room for everyone with endless patience. “He listened all the time,” she recalls. “I could talk his ear off for 40 minutes, and he would just sit there, listening and hearing me. Not just hearing, really listening. Afterward, he would comment on what I had said and express his opinion.”
When Kfir enlisted in the Armored Corps, Muriel felt a certain relief. “I thought he would be protected there. I felt it was safe,” she admits. But Kfir was not satisfied with being protected. He wanted to lead. He quickly advanced to the officer track and became a platoon commander. Responsibility for human lives was, for him, a supreme mission. “He said: ‘I give 100% of myself professionally, socially and as a commander. If not me, then who will command these soldiers? Who will be there for them?’”
The engagement celebration before the war
On Oct. 6, 2023, just one day before the outbreak of the war, the Franco family celebrated Kfir’s vort, the engagement party with the woman he loved. It had all happened quickly. A few weeks earlier, he had sent his parents a photo of himself and his fiancée against the backdrop of the walls of Jerusalem, with the words: “I got engaged.”
“It was his first love, a pure love unlike any other,” his mother says of the special bond. The meeting between the families in the sukkah was a magical moment of smiles and optimism. “Everything was perfect,” his father, Haim, recalls. “We came home, and he was very happy that everything had gone well, that we laughed and agreed.” No one knew it would be the last time they celebrated together.
That Saturday night, Kfir left for his unit. Contact turned into hurried messages and brief phone calls. A week before the ground operation, he called Elior. “We spoke for a minute and a half. He asked how I was and how our parents were,” she says.
On the Friday before he fell, he told his parents he would no longer be available. “I told him we loved him,” Muriel says, “and he said he loved us too.”
On Monday, two days before he fell, he managed to make one last call. “He said, ‘Starting tomorrow, I won’t have a phone at all, not for a minute and not for two,’” Haim says. “I shouted to him from behind, ‘We love you!’ and that was the last thing he heard from me.”
The final battle and the smile that remained
Capt. Kfir Franco led his platoon in battle near Rantisi Hospital in Gaza, following intelligence indicating that hostages were being held there. During the operational movement, due to heavy dust and the need to identify the route of advance, he had to lift his head out of the turret. At that moment, he was hit by sniper fire and killed instantly.
“It’s like an atomic bomb,” Muriel says of the loss. “You have to live in parallel, life and death together.” Elior compares the feeling to the amputation of a limb. “It is like a person whose arm has been cut off; you can keep living, but no prosthetic can ever truly replace what was there.”
To commemorate him, the women of the family wear a special bracelet that always reminds them of Kfir.
Despite the immense pain, the Franco family chooses to carry on Kfir’s legacy through the joy that defined him. His father, Haim, has one request of the public. “I ask everyone to smile all the time,” he says. “We are much more beautiful with a smile. Kfir smiled until the last moment, so let us all be with a smile.”
Capt. Kfir Franco is survived by his parents, two sisters, a fiancée, and an enormous void in the hearts of all who knew him. His story is one of heroism, listening and a smile engraved forever.
Capt. Kfir Franco, of the Armored Corps, fell on Nov. 15, 2023. He was 22.
May his memory be a blessing.
Captain
Kfir Franco