Those We Have Lost

Cpt. Shir Eilat, 20: Selfless observation soldiers commander

Killed when Hamas terrorists overran the Nahal Oz IDF base on October 7

Cpt. Shir Eilat who was killed in Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023. (IDF)
Cpt. Shir Eilat who was killed in Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023. (IDF)

Cpt. Shir Eilat, 20, a commander in the Border Defense Corps’s 414th unit, from Kfar Shmuel, was killed when Hamas terrorists overran the Nahal Oz IDF base on October 7.

She was buried on October 12 in Gezer. She is survived by her parents, Ayelet and Doron, and her two older sisters, Lior and Nir.

Her family and friends said that Shir studied theater in high school, and was weighing either acting school or continuing a military career. She had already stayed on in the IDF past her mandatory service.

Her closest friend from her army service, Lt. Noam Shtemer, told the Kan public broadcaster that when she now enters the war room, she thinks about Shir “all the time. I feel that she’s really here with me, that she’s accompanying me in everything I do.”

“She was a hero in her final moments, in an unbelievable manner,” said Noam. “She worried about all of the girls in the war room, was the most professional, the most operational, the most incredible that only she knew how.”

Her brother-in-law, Shaked Alon, told Kan public radio that he’s known Shir since she was around 8 years old, “and I saw her go through every stage of life, school, high school, enlistment — the rest we sadly won’t be privileged to see. But since she was a child she was a brilliant girl, always surrounded by many friends, a true leader, very social, everyone always wanted to spend time with her.”

Shaked said that, while the family was waiting for news of her fate, as soon as he heard that at least one of the soldiers who was with Shir in the Nahal Oz war room that Saturday morning was killed, “I knew that the situation with Shir is definitely not good, because I know that if someone in the war room was killed, nobody made it out alive, and Shir hadn’t made it out alive because she would never leave one of her soldiers behind.”

From others, Shaked said, they learned that Shir “stayed calm, worried about everyone, protected them, and calmed them down… She put herself aside and worried about them.”

Her sister, Nir, wrote on social media that “my heart will never again return to being whole.”

“Your smile melted every chamber of my heart, and certainly everyone else’s,” Nir wrote. “As the days go by, I go about my day with the feeling that you are in the army and you will come back soon. I feel you living and I can’t fathom that you are no longer.”

“Your laugh plays in my head nonstop, our moments together, our experiences from a young age, our strong connection and the enormous love between us — we would speak to each other with our eyes,” she added. “Now what is left is for me to speak with the heavens and to hope that you hear me.”

Read more Those We Have Lost stories here. 

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