Hundreds in central Israel mourn four soldiers killed in Gaza blast
Funerals held for Chen Gross, Yoav Raver, Tom Rotstein and Uri Yhonatan Cohen, who were crushed Friday when a booby-trapped building exploded in Khan Younis
Four soldiers killed Friday when a booby-trapped building exploded in the southern Gaza Strip were buried in funerals held across central Israel on Sunday.
Hundreds of mourners turned out to pay their last respects to Sgt. Maj. (res.) Chen Gross, 33, Staff Sgt. Yoav Raver, 19, Sgt. First Class Tom Rotstein, 23, and Staff Sgt. Uri Yhonatan Cohen, 20. All but Cohen served in the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit.
The four were killed when a building they entered in Khan Younis collapsed Friday, in an incident that also injured five other troops. The building was booby-trapped, causing an explosion that brought the structure down and trapped the soldiers inside.
In Sde Warburg, a bedroom community northeast of Tel Aviv, Lior Raver said his son Yoav taught him “humility, love, brotherhood and friendship.”
“My beloved child. You lie here before me and I refuse to believe it. You are my firstborn — because of you, I became a father,” he said in front of hundreds of gathered mourners.
Raver chose a combat role in the IDF “out of a deep sense of responsibility,” recalled his father. “You went out with your head held high on a noble mission — to bring back information about the hostages or to bring the hostages themselves home.”
Raver’s mother Gili called her slain son “pure gold,” adding that he “never chose the easy way.”
In nearby Neve Yarak, friends and family of Uri Yhonatan Cohen recalled an able athlete with a passion for playing soccer.
Cohen was a “smiling and quiet young man, an athlete, sensitive and deeply loved, who always carried with him his love for the moshav, for the country and his unwavering commitment to his friends and family,” the moshav said in a statement.
“Our hearts are broken by his passing,” the statement continued.
Before enlisting in the army, Cohen played on the Or Yehuda youth soccer team, where he “made a significant contribution to the team’s success,” the Or Yehuda municipality said in a statement.
Relatives held smaller private funerals for Rotstein and Gross.
Ramat Gan mayor Carmel Shama-Hacohen said the Tel Aviv suburb would lower its flags to half-mast during Rotstein’s funeral to honor its fallen son.
He was eulogized by the city’s deputy mayor Zohar Yesharim as a young man with a “captivating smile, huge heart and warrior’s soul.”
Gross, a 33-year-old reservist from Gan Yoshiya, east of Netanya, moved to the West Bank settlement of Hinanit in adulthood.
He was a member of the community’s volunteer security team and eulogized by the team’s coordinator as a “man who loved to help everyone” and “a great fighter.”
He was laid to rest in the Gan Yoshiya cemetery by his parents, siblings and other family and friends.
The Times of Israel Community.