Cpt. Omer Wolf, 22: Beloved commander secretly wrote beautiful songs

Cpt. Omer Wolf, 22, a Golani soldier from Kibbutz Givat Haim (Meuhad), was killed battling Hamas terrorists near Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7.

He is survived by his parents, Osnat and Arnon, and two sisters, Yuval and Raz. He was buried on October 11 in the Givat Haim cemetery.

Wolf held the role of deputy company commander within the Golani Brigade’s 51st battalion and was in charge of a number of soldiers.

“He was incredibly devoted to his soldiers, and they… felt that. They loved him back hugely,” Osnat Wolf told Israel’s Channel 13. 

At 5:30 a.m. on October 7, Wolf and three other Golani soldiers, Staff Sgt. Shalev Dagan, Staff Sgt. Maru Alem, and Itay Zarbib, piled into a “David” armored vehicle to do a routine patrol along the Gaza border fence.

They were the first to encounter the invasion of Hamas terrorists into southern Israel that morning, engaging in battle with a group of them astride motorcycles and pickup trucks. They fought for more than an hour at five different locations, preventing eight terrorists from entering Kibbutz Nirim and succeeding in delaying the invasion by two hours.

Zarbib, the driver of the David and the lone survivor of the four, told Channel 13 that the group saw a terrorist carrying an RPG launcher and tried to dodge the attack. Dagan and Alem were in the back seat; Alem jumped first and was shot dead by the terrorists, Dagan jumped second and returned fire and was hit and killed by the RPG. Zarbib and Wolf, seated in the front, exited the vehicle to fight the terrorists.

Zarbib was shot in the chest and managed to stay conscious long enough to be rescued by a passing IDF vehicle several hours later.

Wolf, however, was found dead near the vehicle having nearly emptied his last cartridge, surrounded by Hamas terrorists he had killed, his mother Osnat told Channel 12 in a January interview.

After his death, Wolf’s parents discovered that he he had secretly been writing songs on his computer that he had not shared with them. His mother Osnat revealed this information to Channel 12 before the broadcast team surprised her with a video from Israeli singer and composer Rami Kleinstein, who had taken it upon himself to finish one of Omer’s songs and perform it.

“This Omer Wolf was a hell of a writer,” Kleinstein said when he performed the song live a few weeks after the Channel 12 broadcast.

Wolf’s loved ones described him as a quiet, thoughtful person who enriched the lives of those around him.

“You had a rare combination of charisma, inner peace, modesty, and a touch of shyness,” said Osnat at her son’s funeral. “This combination created an amazing personality — a perfect man, nice, people-loving, smart, generous. A good friend with a good sense of humor — sometimes a bit cynical.”

“The love that surrounded you flows to us from all directions and fills our hearts with great pride for what a perfect child you are,” she said.

Wolf’s sister Yuval spoke of him as a modest, caring, natural leader with a magnetic presence. “I love you more than anything in the world, my hero brother,” she said.

“Thank you, [Omer], for being with us for almost 23 years,” his father, Arnon, said in his eulogy. “I know that somewhere, you are beginning a new life.”

Wolf’s girlfriend, Stav Peled, also thanked her late partner for everything he had brought into her life in their short time together. “Thank you for the love that came into my life,” Peled wrote on Facebook in December. “For all the experiences that will always remain ours, for the privilege of knowing Omer Wolf, for the privilege of being Omer Wolf’s partner.”

“You will forever be a part of my life,” Wolf’s longtime friend Lihi Dahan wrote on Facebook after his passing. “You have always been a part of my heart and it will never be whole again.”

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