Aviad Cohen, 41: Dad of 6 who ‘reflected the Israeli spirit’

Aviad Gad Cohen, 41, from Shlomit, was killed on October 7 while battling the Hamas attack on Moshav Pri Gan.

When the rocket fire began that morning, Aviad was praying in a synagogue at an early-morning service in Shlomit, situated about 5 miles from the Gaza border and just a few hundred meters from the Egyptian border. Aviad headed home to his wife and five of his six children — the oldest was with friends in Sderot.

Aviad, a member of the local security team, helped calm down the kids inside their reinforced room before heading out to assess the situation. Unbeknownst to his wife, Aviad joined 10 other Shlomit residents and headed to the nearby Pri Gan community where Hamas gunmen were trying to invade.

Aviad and his friends and neighbors Bechor Swid, Reouven Chicheportiche and Oriel Bibi — as well as police officer Supt. Avi Zidon — were slain in the battle. No civilians in the town were killed.

As a member of his community’s local security team, Aviad was posthumously recognized as a fallen soldier with the rank of sergeant major in the reserves.

He was buried on October 10 in Berekhya. He is survived by his wife, Dana, their six children, Noa, Oriya, Maayan, Tohar, Dror and Uri, his parents, Oshra and Yitzhak, and his six siblings, Itamar, Eldad, Uriya, Daniel, Yotam and Noam.

Born in Berekhya, near Ashkelon, Aviad attended religious schools, including a yeshiva high school in Kfar Maimon. He attended the religious Yatir pre-military academy in the south Hebron Hills before enlisting in the IDF and serving in the Golani Brigade’s reconnaissance unit. He continued to do regular reserve duty for many years.

Aviad and Dana settled in Shlomit, a small town that was only established in 2011, and they were among the pioneers of the nascent community. Aviad worked for Mekorot, the water company, and was responsible for overseeing and inspecting the water supply in the western Negev region.

“He was there, come rain or shine, always the first to help with any task or challenge, always at the front lines of action,” the company said in a statement. “He reflected the Israeli spirit in all its glory, the values of mutual responsibility, of solidarity and generosity to others and to the community.”

Marking a year since he was killed, Aviad’s brother, Eldad, wrote on Facebook about all the things he missed: “Barbecues where something is missing, coffee that’s OK but not any better than that, five to six conversations a day (at least), plays we’d stage for the kids on the holidays that I’ll never do again without you.”

Eldad wrote of missing “not very funny jokes, the advice that would help me make decisions, the conversations in which you knew how to say the right words in order to calm things down, knowing that you had my back on every issue and topic. Knowing that I could call you and you’d drive an hour to me just to hang a shelf or some other nonsense.”

“The glue of the family, the nights in Eshkol Park, the shooting range, knowing how to take everything easily and in proportion,” he continued. “The stupid impersonations, the dumb videos, the voice notes that would make me crack up with laughter, making beer together — it’s a million more things that will never be the same without you.”

Aviad’s wife, Dana, described to Ynet that when she told her children their father had been killed, “I sat them on the couch, looked them in the eyes and said that their father was a hero, he went to go help the residents of Pri Gan, he was killed and he won’t return. I explained to them that at this moment the heroism of their father passed on to them, entered into their DNA.”

Dana added, “I told them, ‘We’ll be heroes like Dad. We’ll fall, we’ll cry, we’ll get up, we’ll laugh and it will be hard but we’ll succeed.’ I promised them that our home will continue to be a home of joy and full of life because that was their father.”

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