Six bullets, six terrorists and an unimaginable loss: Farewell to Maj. Uri Russo
Uri, the son of Pnina and Yosef and brother to Sagit, Maayan and Yehonatan, grew up in Kibbutz Kissufim in the western Negev. He was a well-liked, easygoing teenager who loved literature, art and music. After his death, one of his longtime teachers eulogized him, saying, “When Uri smiled, the whole world received a little more light.”
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Uri enlisted in the IDF at 18 and began pilot training before transferring to the Nahal Brigade’s Orev anti-tank company, where he served as a machine gunner and later as an officer. During his military service, Uri saved the life of a soldier who was critically wounded, and his commander described him as “a figure of hope and courage.”
During a training exercise at the Tze’elim base, he met Dafna, a soldier from Kfar Aza, and, as she recalls with a smile, she made the first move. After seven years together, they married in August 2007. When their eldest daughter, Maya, was 1 month old, they decided to return to Kfar Aza.
The couple later had two more daughters, Alona and Yaela. With the family dog, Peanut, and their cats always nearby, Uri was the kind of father who would lie on the grass in the yard with his daughters and teach them to gaze at the stars through a telescope. He also introduced them to the world of Disney and Pixar, making sure they knew all the classics.
One of his daughters still remembers coming home from school one day to find him standing there with bags full of groceries. “I’m not going to teach you how to cook,” he told her. “We’re going to cook together.” From that day on, they cooked side by side.
Engineer, firefighter and the family’s ‘Bob the Builder’
By profession, Uri was an engineer and served as maintenance and engineering manager at the UBQ plant in Tze’elim. At home, his daughters affectionately nicknamed him “Bob the Builder.”
On the kibbutz, he served on the community committee, the education administration and the board of Syncopa, a sound company. He also volunteered as a firefighter with the Ashkelon fire station and the kibbutz fire unit and was a dedicated member of the community security squad.
His friends knew him as someone who brought positive energy and uplifting music to every gathering. As one of his daughters put it, people simply smiled when they were around him. “I believe each of us carries within us the light that can change the world,” he once said at a family gathering, a sentiment he lived by.
Without saying goodbye
Friday, Oct. 6, was “an ordinary Friday, nothing special,” in Dafna’s words. Then Saturday came. At 6:29 a.m., as the first sirens sounded, Peanut woke the family. The girls were sleeping together in the safe room in bunk beds, and Uri and Dafna joined them.
Then a message came through on Uri’s phone. He quickly got up to check the security squad messages, left the safe room, changed clothes and grabbed his handgun. Moments later, the girls heard the front door open and close. “What, Dad is leaving without saying goodbye?” they asked Dafna.
Uri, certain he would be back in a few moments, was already riding his bicycle toward the kibbutz armory. At 6:50 a.m., he sent his final message to the security squad group: “I’ve reached the armory.”
A short time later, Uri learned that terrorists had entered the home of his close friends, Smadar and Roy Edan. It was the first report of a terrorist infiltration into a home in Kfar Aza. Uri rushed to the scene with fellow security squad member Tal Ayalon, and the two were among the first in the kibbutz to engage the terrorists.
Uri managed to fire six bullets and kill six terrorists before he was shot and killed alongside Tal.
Two days passed from the moment Uri left home until Dafna learned what had happened to him. It was not until Monday afternoon, after his identity had been confirmed and she and her daughters had been evacuated from the kibbutz, that she was told he had been killed in battle.
Dafna walked into the room where the girls were waiting. One look at the pain on her face was enough. She did not have to say a word; they understood that their father was gone. She sat down with them on the bed, and the three held one another in silence for a long time.
His light will shine forever
Uri is survived by his wife, Dafna, his daughters Maya, Alona and Yaela, his parents, two sisters and a brother.
Nearly three years later, Uri’s daughters are still trying to come to terms with the fact that he never had the chance to say goodbye that morning. They now carry his memory with them in tangible ways. The Hebrew word “ohev,” meaning “love,” which he used to sign a letter to Dafna, is engraved on a necklace and a bracelet they wear. His wedding ring — the one Dafna had engraved with the words “Yours forever” when she proposed to him — was divided among the three daughters, each receiving a piece bearing the first letter of her name.
“I’m proud of him and I love him,” Dafna said. “He went to save our friends, Smadar and Roy, and I’m proud of him for that too.”
In his 44 years, Uri accomplished more than many do in a lifetime, leaving behind a light that will never be extinguished.
Maj. Uri Russo of the Border Defense Corps was killed on Oct. 7, 2023. He was 44.
May his memory be a blessing.
Major
Uri Russo