Bechor Swid, 32: Landscape gardener and father of 3 girls
Killed battling the Hamas invasion of southern Israel on October 7
Bechor Chai Swid, 32, from Shlomit, was killed on October 7 while battling the Hamas invasion of southern Israel.
The family was spending the holiday in Shuva that morning, but when Bechor heard of the Hamas infiltration in the neighboring town of Pri Gan, next to Shlomit, he left and headed to help his friends in battle. On the way, he encountered a terrorist cell and opened fire on them, but was killed in the gun battle.
As a member of Shlomit’s local security team, he was posthumously recognized as a fallen soldier with the rank of master sergeant in the reserves.
He was buried on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl on October 11. He is survived by his wife, Neora, their three daughters Carmi, Alma and Shaked, his parents, Hadassah and Yaakov and his siblings Naor, Lidor and Or.
Born and raised in Netivot, he moved as a teen to the nearby Moshav Shuva. After high school, he attended the Neve Dekalim hesder yeshiva in Ashdod before enlisting in the Givati Brigade, where he served as a squad commander, according to an online eulogy.
Bechor worked as a teacher for seven years before deciding to take a different path, opening his own gardening business and was pursuing a degree in architecture and interior design engineering at the Technological College Beersheba when he was killed. Zohar Nir, one of his instructors, was on hand to award his diploma posthumously to Bechor’s mother in March 2024.
“In reality, Bechor taught us,” said Nir. “He sat in the front row and sharpened us. Bechor was full of knowledge, he knew what he was saying. He was the dad of everyone, the class was so much more wonderful because of his leadership.” He was known around school and among his friends as a “cowboy” for the trademark hat he always used to wear.
Bechor and his wife Neora met at the sheva brachot wedding celebration of mutual friends. They wed and settled first in Ashdod before moving to Shlomit, where Bechor built their home himself, which he was just finishing up when he was killed.
Neora wrote in August 2024, marking 11 months since he was killed — “11 months without your hug, without your words, without your voice. Without your ‘good morning’ and your ‘good night.'”
“Without hearing the click of your keys in the door, without your popping into the house in the middle of the day, without taking the girls to mincha and maariv [prayers], without the flowers you bought or the roses you clipped from the garden every Friday, without your laughter with the girls, without you throwing them up in the air and making us smoothies.”
It has been 11 months, she wrote, “without anyone to kill the cockroaches for me, and to remove the bird that got stuck in the chimney… without you building me something beautiful out of wood or going along with my crazy design ideas… without the Friday tractor rides in Re’im, without experiencing nature together as we used to do.”
Eleven months have passed, Neora added, “without you seeing Alma start first grade and Shakedi begin daycare, without being here with me in the hardest time of my life, without your huge heart, which was always there for others no matter what.”
