Avi Hindi, 37: Engineer and devoted father of three

Avraham “Avi” Hananel “Hanani” Hindi, 37, was killed while fighting off a Hamas invasion of Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7.

As the deputy local security chief on the kibbutz, he was posthumously recognized by the Defense Ministry as a fallen soldier with the rank of captain in the reserves.

His family said that when the attack began, he made sure his wife and children were in their reinforced room before picking up his weapon and heading out with the rest of the local security team. They fought back against the dozens of Hamas terrorists who had infiltrated the kibbutz and Avi was shot dead in the gunfight. Overall, seven of the 14 members of Kfar Aza’s security team were killed on October 7.

Avi was buried on October 13 in Srigim. He is survived by his wife, Shahar, their three children, Itamar, 8, Omer, 5, and Rotem, 1, as well as his parents, Yaffa and Naftali and seven siblings: Elitzur, Ayelet, Orly, Evyatar, Shmaya, Shoshana and Yael.

The fifth out of eight siblings, he was known to his wife and his friends as Avi, the name he chose to go by during his army service, while his parents and siblings called him Hanani. He served in a combat unit during his mandatory army service, and later spent two years volunteering at “House of Wheels,” a home for children with physical disabilities. He later studied engineering and worked at the kibbutz plastic’s factory for several years, later becoming the kibbutz director of projects.

Shahar and Avi met while they were both doing IDF reserve duty during the 2014 Gaza war, and they wed six months later.

“Words can’t begin to describe what I have to say about Avi as a partner and a father,” she wrote on a memorial page. “Everything I say cannot cover the person he was. He was everything, a perfect father, the most wonderful partner I could ask for, always thinking about us, making sure to come home early to be with the kids.”

Shahar said Avi “really loved nature and hiking, he endowed our children with a love of the land of Israel. He loved to play tennis, even ran a tennis tournament in the kibbutz that was considered a very successful event… he spent time with all three children and gave them everything he could.”

His oldest son, Itamar, 8, told Israel Hayom that “I know he helped a lot of people because he was on the local security team, and that’s important… I like thinking about him. There are a lot of moments where I let myself cry, because sometimes it makes me feel better. But I’m happy that we got to do a lot of things together. We flew abroad, we played soccer, tennis and also Monopoly. I would never let him win.”

Itamar added that “everything my father did, he did it the best.”

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