Cpt. Itay Maor, 23: Golani commander loved hiking with his siblings
Killed battling the Hamas invasion near Zikim Beach on October 7
Cpt. Itay Maor, 23, a platoon commander in the Golani Brigade from Rosh Ha’ayin, was killed on October 7 battling Hamas.
Itay was stationed that day at the small Erez base near the Gaza border, and with the start of the attack he headed to Netiv Ha’asara with a number of his soldiers to counter the Hamas invasion. There, his family said, they succeeded in preventing a larger attack on the moshav by killing a number of terrorists.
Later, the troops headed back toward Zikim Beach, where many Hamas gunmen had infiltrated Israel. Along the way, Itay was killed in a shootout in which his soldiers were vastly outmanned by the invading terrorists.
He was slain alongside two of his soldiers: Sgt. Uri Locker and Sgt. Amit Tsur, and two others — Staff Sgt. Ofir Zioni and Sgt. Dvir Lisha — were killed nearby that day.
Itay is survived by his parents, Smadar and Ilan, and his three younger siblings Liav, 21, Nehoray, 18 and Yonatan, 15. He was buried on October 9 in Rosh Haayin.
Before his enlistment, Itay studied in a yeshiva in Givat Shmuel and then in the Otzem pre-army academy in Naveh. Just a week before he was killed, Itay spent the beginning of the Sukkot holiday with his family in Eilat. It was the last time they all saw him.
His father, Ilan, told a local news site that Itay “was a man of Torah and of work, he loved the land of Israel, he loved hiking in nature and loved his family. He always knew how to bring his siblings together.” The four brothers would regularly go out on hikes together.
“Anytime he would come home for Shabbat, he would say to his brothers, ‘Let’s sit together and talk.’ They enjoyed going to the springs to drink coffee or to ride with them on bikes, to stay in touch with them, to listen to them and give them tips,” said Ilan.
In a meeting between the families of the fallen soldiers in Itay’s platoon, his mother, Smadar, told Ynet that “it was really important for me to connect between the families. I felt like it was the last wishes of my son Itay.”
In a notebook she found after his death, Smadar said that Itay wrote, “‘Bereaved families are with us forever.’ I have no doubt that if he would have survived the fighting, the first thing he would have done was to make contact with the families of the fallen and to embrace them as much as possible.”
“Itay was modest, humble and happy, a man of Torah and work. He spoke little and did a lot,” his mother added. “The value of family was chief in his eyes, and his siblings were always at the forefront.”
He could always be found with his portable gas burner to make Turkish coffee, she said, which became a symbol “of his unique relationships with his parents, siblings, relatives, friends and comrades.” Spending time in nature with Itay and his coffee maker “constituted magical moments of connection, acceptance and listening. Love of Torah and love of the land were rooted in his heart.”
