Arik Kraunik, 54: Be’eri security chief who set out first on Oct. 7
Killed battling a Hamas invasion of Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7
Arie “Arik” Kraunik, 54, was killed on October 7 while battling a Hamas invasion of Kibbutz Be’eri, where he lived.
The head of the kibbutz’s local security team, he was retroactively recognized as a fallen soldier with the rank of sergeant major by the IDF.
He is survived by his wife, Sigal, their four children, Chen, Tamar, Hagar and Noa, and his sister, Rachel. He was buried on October 23 in Yehud.
Members of the kibbutz said he was the first to head to the gate at 6:30 a.m. that Saturday to fight back the Hamas invasion, after warning everyone in Be’eri to enter their safe rooms and lock their doors. He was killed in a gun battle with dozens of terrorists.
A lifelong member of the kibbutz who was born there, Arik was described as an excellent athlete, devoted husband and loving father. A eulogy on the kibbutz website noted that “everywhere he went he would bring energy and leave his fingerprint. His loud voice was a vocal expression of his heart and his endless generosity, his attempt to reach as many people as possible, to unite as many people as possible. Arik’s smile, which characterized him so much, was also like a loud voice for long distances: ‘Everything with a smile,’ he would say, ‘everything with love.'”
Two of his daughters, Tamar and Hagar, sat down with Channel 13 news to speak about their father and their experiences surviving the horrors of October 7.
“To me, he was a figure to be admired,” said Tamar. “He was a Zionist, who loved the country, who always convinced me to give back to the country, to give as much as possible to the country.” She noted that during her own army service, anytime she had to spend a weekend on base, “he would come every weekend, no matter where I was, to see me, to visit me — anywhere I needed him, he would come, in life, in every situation.”
Hagar said that she was choosing to enlist in the Border Police to continue her father’s legacy of protecting the nation: “Protecting the country was an iron-clad rule in our house, loving the nation, being Zionist, was something we always talked about.”
At his funeral, his son Chen said the pair would “speak for hours about life. When I was wounded you would call me every 10 minutes to ask, ‘How are you feeling?’ I promise to safeguard the values you gave us. To protect Mom, Tamar, Hagar and Noa. We will be strong together. Show us the way with your signs. I love you endlessly.”
His wife, Sigal, told Arutz Sheva that her husband “was one of the first people killed” on October 7. But we are comforted, she said, by the fact “that he saved so many lives by telling them to go into their safe rooms, by recognizing that it was an unusual incident and calling up the security team, his intuition was so right, and he so much understood that this was a different kind of incident — to me, he is a hero.”
