Cpt. Ori Shani, 22: Golani commander with ‘courage, strength, spirit’
Killed battling Hamas terrorists near the Kissufim IDF outpost on Oct. 7
Cpt. Ori Mordechay Shani, 22, a platoon commander in the Golani Brigade’s 51st Battalion, from Kiryat Arba, was killed on October 7 battling the Hamas invasion of the Kissufim IDF outpost.
At the start of the attack, Ori and five of his soldiers were on a routine patrol of the border. They began to fight against the invasion, but were underequipped. Ori’s brother, Yishai, told Ynet that he texted him that morning “pray for us, we have no ammo, no water.”
At 3:26 p.m., Yishai said, he texted Ori requesting a sign of life, and he responded “still alive.”
After more than 8 hours battling near the border, during which they succeeded in killing many Hamas gunmen, Ori and his team returned to the Kissufim outpost to gather more ammunition, and there they were attacked with mortar fire which killed Ori on the spot as well as his soldier, Sgt. Reem Batito.
He was buried on October 10 on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. He is survived by his wife, Miriam, their son, Roi, 4 months, his parents, Shulamit and Yehoshua, and his six siblings, Nava, Bat-Zion, Yishai, Tzofia, Elisha and Malachi.
Born and raised in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, next to Hebron, Ori studied in a yeshiva in Ramat Gan before enlisting in the army. He served first in the Egoz commando unit before completing an officer’s course and taking a position in the Golani Brigade.
He had a love of reading, his family said, and even won a local reading competition in his youth. In his memory, his family is working to establish a library at a school in Modiin where two of his nephews study, writing that “Ori was interested in a wide range of genres, and was always proud of the knowledge he got from reading. As a father, he wanted to pass that on to the next generation.”
After his death, his family said, they found some of his notebooks and writing in which he had contemplated his contributions to the country: “What do the people of Israel need the most from me now?” he wrote. “How can I, Ori Shani, the individual, get out of my box and become part of this wonderful nation, this extraordinary people?”
His wife, Miriam, told Army Radio that “Ori, as his name, was truly a huge light, he had a light that shone to all those around him, a smile that spread to everyone around him.”
The couple, who both grew up in Kiryat Arba, met in high school and started dating while he was in the army, marrying a year and a half before Ori was killed and settling in their hometown.
“Ori always dreamed and aspired, he didn’t rest, he was a leader,” Miriam added. After he was killed, his family received his phone back “and we found a selfie of him smiling with his soldiers at 9:56 a.m. The soldiers who made it back alive told us that he ordered them to smile for the camera, he saw that they needed motivation and strength, and he told them he was sending the photo to their mothers so that they would be proud of them.”
“That to me is a leader, full of courage, strength and spirit, who knew what his goal was,” she added. “He was always thinking about others… his last two words were ‘take cover.’ His concern for other people was always in his mind.”