Staff Sgt. Ronel Ben-Moshe OBM fell on his final maneuver: “You feel how much he’s missing”
Staff Sgt. Ronel Ben-Moshe of the Combat Engineering Corps, son of Revital and Moshe, fell on the 28th of Sivan (June 24, 2025), at age 21. He is survived by his parents and five siblings.
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In the deep pain of war, there are names that become a symbol of life, of a smile that never ends and of a rare ability to connect the edges of Israeli society. Staff Sgt. Ronel Ben-Moshe, a Combat Engineering Corps soldier who fell in battle in Khan Younis, was exactly that. He was not only a fighter; he was the beating heart of a huge circle of friends, an admired eldest brother and a young man who lived by the motto he left behind: “Live, rejoice, believe.”
A kid of action and math
Ronel was born into the Ben-Moshe family, the eldest of six children. Even as a child, he stood out for an unusual blend of profound seriousness and captivating lightness. His father, Moshe, speaks of him with longing: “Ronel was a simply amazing kid. He’s my firstborn, a kid who lived up to his name — Ronel. He was always a child of joy, of action, of friends.”
That combination stayed with him every step of the way. On one hand, an outstanding student who did not go easy on himself, and on the other a teenager determined to wring every drop of enjoyment from life. “A kid who knows how to combine advanced math, he got a very high grade on the matriculation exam and going out at 1 or 2 at night to play billiards and heading to a beach. He didn’t give up on having fun,” his father recalls.
His close friends describe someone impossible to ignore. “Ronel was insanely energetic,” one friend says. “Either he’s relaxing to the max, or he’s excited to the max. If he wanted something to happen, he would give 100%.”
Bridging between secular and religious
One of the most striking things about Ronel was that he was deeply observant, yet never allowed his faith to become a barrier between him and others. On the contrary, faith was a tool for connection. “He was very strictly religious,” one friend says. “You would never catch him not putting on tefillin in the morning, not wearing tzitzit, not going with a kippah. I’m his best friend and I’m not religious at all, and I never felt a gap between us.”
His friend Yosef Dzedzitz adds: “He was always everyone’s kid, always at the center. Standing out with his laughter, doing silly things and making everyone laugh, lifting the mood. He knew how to bring people together, loved being with everyone, including people who aren’t religious, all sides and all communities.”
Basic training hardship became fun
When enlistment time came, Ronel hesitated. He began a program in a pre-military academy and planned to become a practical engineer, but at the last moment his heart pulled him elsewhere, to meaningful combat service in the Combat Engineering Corps. “Something changed at the last minute and he went into combat,” his friends say.
When enlistment time came, Ronel hesitated. He began a program in a pre-military academy and planned to become a practical engineer, but at the last moment his heart pulled him elsewhere,to meaningful combat service in the Combat Engineering Corps. “Something changed at the last minute and he went into combat,” his friends say.venture. “He’d talk about insane, dangerous things like they were a walk in the park. He had that outlook on life, with everything, he’d find a way to turn it into something fun and funny.” His father describes the spirit that drove him in the war: “He always said, ‘We will win the war and bring back the hostages,’ and that’s what always led him.”
Tragedy on the final maneuver
Ronel’s death stunned everyone, precisely because of his unimaginable vitality. “It’s the kind of thing where you say, ‘No chance, this won’t happen to Ronel.’ Of all the people in the world, it just can’t be,” a friend says painfully.
The circumstances were especially tragic. Ronel was supposed to finish his operational service just three days after the day he fell. “It was supposed to be his last maneuver. On Thursday he was supposed to be released from operational duty and move to rear-echelon roles,” his father says. During activity in Khan Younis, as the force was entering armored vehicles to protect itself from an Israeli air force bombardment in the area, a terrorist emerged and threw an explosive charge into the Puma armored personnel carrier where Ronel was.
The news reached the family in an unbearable way. The youngest son, 13, was at home when the officers arrived. He called his father in tears: “Dad, there are all kinds of soldiers and officers here.” The father says: “We drove almost 40 minutes, the whole way we knew we were driving to what was probably the hardest news.”
A legacy of a smile and a hug
Ronel left behind an enormous void, but also a living legacy. A WhatsApp group in his memory has more than 700 members, who share photos, stickers and memories every day. “You feel how much he’s missing,” his friends say. “There’s this space where Ronel was supposed to be — and he isn’t.”
When his friends are asked what they would say to him if they could meet him one last time, the answer is simple and human: “I’m pretty sure I’d tell him I love him. Because I never said that to him in my life. He’d probably laugh at me, but that’s what I’d say.”
His father sums up the son who was the pillar of the home: “He would come home, make noise and action, pick up little Lavi, a burst of life. His joy for life is not something you can recreate.”
For his friends, the lesson they learned from Ronel is their compass going forward: “Because of him, I learned what it means to be a friend. We swore to preserve and remember and spread Ronel’s light and his way of life throughout the world.”
Staff Sgt. Ronel Ben-Moshe fell as a hero, but he will be remembered for the way he lived: with burning faith, unconditional love of people and a smile that even the hardest war could not extinguish.
May his memory be a blessing.
Staff Sergeant
Ronel Ben-Moshe OBM