Cpt. Iftah Yavetz, 23: Elite unit commander with ‘a poetic soul’

Cpt. Iftah Yavetz, 23, a commander in the elite Maglan commando unit, from Ramat Hasharon, was killed battling the Hamas invasion near Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7.

Iftah was home in Ramat Hasharon at the start of the Hamas attack, and without waiting for orders decided to head down south to the frontlines, and along the way to connect with other Maglan fighters. His father said when Iftah was on his way down south, they briefly spoke, and he said “there’s huge chaos, dozens of terrorists inside Israel, we’ll talk later.”

Around noon, the soldiers arrived at the entrance to Kibbutz Nahal Oz, which they had heard was under heavy attack. While on the way, Iftah sent a text message to kibbutz security chief Ilan Fiorentino, without knowing that he had already been killed, which read: “Ilan, this is Iftah Yavetz, the operations commander of Maglan. Stay strong, we’re on the way to you.”

Reaching the outskirts of the kibbutz, they fought a fierce battle against the Hamas invaders, and Iftah, Maj. Chen Bochris and Staff Sgt. Afik Rosenthal, all of Maglan, were slain in the firefight.

Iftah was buried in Tel Aviv on October 9. He is survived by his parents, Shira and Gilad, and his five half-siblings, Michal, 19, Tamar, 18, Yael, 17, Ella, 15, and Dan, 14.

A talented pianist and an accomplished tennis player, he was ranked third in the country, but chose to put sports aside and focus on a serious military career. He enlisted in early 2019, and worked his way up to being a commander in the elite Maglan unit after completing an officer’s course.

Gilad, Iftah’s father, told Calcalist in an interview that his son “was very unique and deep in how he looked at life. He read a lot, he wrote a lot, he had a lot of meaningful relationships with people, he experienced love… he lived a short but very full life.”

He and Iftah, he said, “were close on the deepest level possible, the way we spoke and wrote and also without words. We said how much we loved each other and learned from each other. So I wasn’t left with the feeling of ‘why didn’t I tell him.'”

Iftah grew up with two sets of parents, he said, after each of his parents remarried, “and he was very close to all four of us. He came to the conclusion that family is the most important thing. He extended this also to his team in the army — the team is everything.”

Iftah’s mother, Shira, said in an IDF memorial article that the pair had developed a tradition, where every Shabbat which he would spend on base, they would send each other a song or a poem or a text that had meaning: “It was usually poems, but sometimes songs, quotes from books or beautiful prose,” she said. “Every week I would look for poems on all sorts of topics, and Iftah would send one back. I was always surprised that he had time to look.”

Shira made a book of all their exchanges when he completed his officer’s course, and after his death printed more copies of it for his loved ones: “A lot of people who served with Iftah didn’t know that side of him. He was a tough and serious fighter, they didn’t know he also had a poetic soul.”

“Iftah had wonderful language. He was a person who gave a lot of value to the written word,” she added. “He always had a book in his bag, even when he headed out to very difficult weeks in the army he would take a book with him. It always amazed me that even when his comrades didn’t have time to shower, he would find time to read.”

After Iftah was killed, his parents were given a letter he had written three months earlier, ahead of a complicated IDF operation in the West Bank, from which he thought he might not emerge alive.

He and his comrades, he wrote, were about to begin fighting “knowing full well (me at least) that we are embarking on an operation from which not all of us will return. Despite that, I look back and sideways and I’m very confident in ourselves. We are sharp, we have prepared well… when my thoughts wander a little — why us and why now — that’s what I think about, and suddenly the answer is very clear to me. Fighting for this country, leading this unit, is not supreme heroism – it is the standard.”

The final line of the letter, his family engraved on his headstone: “If I had to sculpt anew my life, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

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