He went in to rescue his wounded commander and fell in Be’eri: Remembering Sgt. Ariel Ohana
Ariel, the son of Liat and Yaniv and brother to Yoav and his younger sisters, Gili and Shaked, was born in Moshav Talmei Yehiel. When he was a year old, his family moved to Kibbutz Revadim. He was an easygoing baby who could fall asleep anywhere, a child who adapted easily to every change and, as his uncle put it, “the genetic distillation of all the best parts of the family.”
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He seemed to be lucky, too. On the day he was born, his parents received a lottery scratch card at the hospital and won 5,000 shekels. “There was always this sense of luck around him,” his uncle says. “A kind of luck that made me believe he was protected and that nothing could ever hurt him.”
The glue that held the group together
Ariel grew up on the kibbutz with the same close-knit group of friends, known as the “Pitomim,” and had been inseparable from them since he was 2. He was a prankster who kept his friends laughing with his impressions and quick wit, but he was also the leader, the one who came up with ideas and made them happen. His friends called him “the glue that held the group together” and “a magnet for people.”
Amid all the noise and laughter, Ariel also had a keen sense for when someone was hurting and knew how to be there for them without saying much. “He was always there to listen, one of the best listeners there was,” one of his childhood friends from the kibbutz said. Even today, the friend says, whenever something good happens, his first instinct is to visit Ariel’s grave and tell him about it.
From fifth grade through 12th grade, Ariel played for the Tzafit Foxes basketball team and served as its captain. He had played chess from an early age, loved soccer and spent his mornings tending to the animals on his family’s farm: horses, chickens, rabbits and hamsters.
One of his friends still remembers mornings at Ariel’s home, when his father would knock on the door at 7 a.m. and Ariel, still groggy from sleep, would make his way to the farm and start cleaning the cages.
Alongside his love of animals, the energetic teenager also had an entrepreneurial streak. He opened a small kiosk in his room at boarding school, organized hamburger nights with his friends and even ran a pizzeria with them. He also managed a small investment portfolio, hoping it would put him on the path to the first million he dreamed of making.
In 10th grade, Amit, his girlfriend from Kibbutz Hatzor who was a year below him in high school, entered his life. From then on, the two were inseparable.
The heart of the team
At the kibbutz, it was customary to spend a year volunteering before enlisting, but Ariel was eager to begin his military service. He trained whenever he could, took part in elite-unit screening days and selection trials and passed them all. In August 2022, he enlisted in the Paratroopers Brigade’s 890th Battalion.
In the battalion, Ariel trained as a Negev machine gunner and became a central figure in the battalion’s reconnaissance and strike team, where the soldiers nicknamed him “Big Ohana.”
When his commanders wanted to send him to a squad commanders’ course, Ariel declined, saying he preferred to stay with his team and the friends he served alongside. “He wanted to be the heart of the group,” his uncle says. “That was who he was with his friends back home, and that was who he became in the army as well.”
Thirty hours in Be’eri
On Yom Kippur 2023, Ariel stood beside his father in prayer throughout the day and carried among the worshippers a Torah scroll written in memory of his grandfather, Maxim.
Three days later, the war broke out. Ariel was with his battalion at the Nabi Musa base in the Jordan Valley. The soldiers were flown by helicopter to the area of Kibbutz Alumim, landed at 11 a.m. and continued on foot toward Be’eri, which was under attack by about 300 terrorists.
After coming under heavy fire at the entrance to the kibbutz, the force regrouped and Ariel was assigned to the lead assault team, the unit that would go in first. For more than a day, he moved with the team from house to house, rescuing residents from their homes and killing eight terrorists at close range.
In one of the charred homes, Ariel found a kippah. He placed it on the head of a secular member of his team and told him it would bring him luck. The soldier later carried it with him into battles in Gaza.
Meanwhile, back in Revadim, Ariel’s worried family and friends tried to reassure one another. “Ohana?” they would say. “Who could possibly take him down?”
The following afternoon, after more than 30 hours of fighting, Ariel’s team commander stormed the Be’eri home of Yuval and Maayan Bar, who had been murdered there the previous day.
A terrorist who had been barricaded inside the house for hours opened fire, leaving the commander wounded and helpless on the floor.
Ariel did not hesitate. He went in with his Negev machine gun to rescue his commander and engaged the terrorist in a firefight. Ariel was struck by a burst of gunfire. One bullet penetrated between the plates of his body armor and struck him in the waist. He was killed at the scene.
‘Ahavat Ariel’
Ariel’s friends at Kibbutz Revadim learned of his death even before military officers reached his parents’ home. The father of one of Ariel’s closest friends, who lived next door to the Ohana family, was sitting on his porch when he saw the officers’ vehicle pull up.
He went to his son’s room and knocked on the door. “I knew immediately from the look on his face what had happened,” the friend recalls. Within 15 minutes, the entire group had gathered there, without its leader.
Ariel is survived by his parents, Liat and Yaniv, his brother Yoav and his sisters Gili and Shaked.
The basketball team he played for now bears his name, as does the Kibbutz’s synagogue, “Ahavat Ariel” (“Love of Ariel”). “What makes me proudest is that he saved lives, literally,” his uncle says. “He was chosen to be an angel. That’s how I see it.”
In his 19 years, Ariel accomplished more than many do in a lifetime, leaving behind a legacy of light that will never be extinguished.
Sgt. Ariel Ohana, of the Paratroopers Brigade’s 890th Battalion, fell on Oct. 8, 2023. He was 19 years old.
May his memory be a blessing.
Sergeant
Ariel Ohana