IDF soldier killed in ramming to be buried Tuesday after family flies in from Ukraine

Foreign Ministry said working to bring Sgt. Maksym Molchanov’s father to Israel despite exit restrictions due to Russian invasion

Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

This handout photo shows Cpl. Maksym Molchanov, who was killed in a truck-ramming attack near Modiin on August 31, 2023. (Courtesy)
This handout photo shows Cpl. Maksym Molchanov, who was killed in a truck-ramming attack near Modiin on August 31, 2023. (Courtesy)

Sgt. Maksym Molchanov, an off-duty Israeli soldier killed in a truck-ramming terror attack near the central city of Modiin last week, is to be buried on Tuesday after his family arrives in the country from Ukraine.

In a statement Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces said the funeral would take place on Tuesday at 5 p.m. at the Kiryat Shaul military cemetery in Tel Aviv.

Molchanov, 20, moved to Israel from eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv in 2017, leaving his family behind.

Molchanov served in the 411th Battalion of the 282nd Regiment in the Artillery Corps, and was posthumously promoted from the rank of corporal to sergeant.

In the attack carried out on the Israeli side of the Maccabim checkpoint on Thursday, six other people, including three of Molchanov’s comrades, were wounded. The Palestinian assailant was shot dead at a nearby checkpoint after allegedly attempting to carry out a second attack.

Molchanov’s family decided that he would be buried in Israel, rather than having his body sent to Ukraine for interment.

The scene of a truck-ramming attack at the Hashmonaim checkpoint near Modiin, August 31, 2023. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)

According to a Friday report by Channel 12 news, Israel’s Foreign Ministry was making efforts to enable Molchanov’s father to travel to Israel to attend his funeral.

Some of his relatives were already en route to Israel for his funeral, but his father was blocked from leaving the country due to restrictions on men under 60 leaving during the war with Russia, the report said.

The Foreign Ministry was working to facilitate Molchanov’s father traveling to Israel despite the ban on leaving Ukraine, it said.

The family was first informed of Molchanov’s death by an emissary of the Chabad Hasidic movement in Kharkiv.

The emissary, Marim Moskovitch, told Channel 12 that the IDF had contacted her and coached her on how to break the news of Molchanov’s death to his family.

“I arrived and his mother, Larissa, opened the door, and it wasn’t easy,” Moskovitch said. “To tell a mother that her child was killed, it’s really, really hard.”

“They were in shock, crying out, weeping. Really hoping that maybe there was a mistake, maybe it’s not him,” she said.

During talks between the family and the IDF, the two sides decided that Molchanov would be buried in Israel.

“It wasn’t easy, but they decided that he would want to be buried in Israel, as a part of the army,” she said. “He was really a special person.”

The scene of a truck-ramming attack at the Hashmonaim checkpoint near Modiin, August 31, 2023. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)

Molchanov moved to Israel at the age of 15 through the Jewish Agency’s Naale Elite Academy, a program for Jewish teenagers to complete their high school education in Israel.

Molchanov obtained Israeli citizenship in 2021, and was drafted to the IDF’s Artillery Corps in 2022. He lived in the coastal city of Herzliya.

He was a “lone soldier,” which the military defines as troops whose parents do not live in Israel or who are not supported financially by their parents.

Last year, while in the military, Molchanov donated bone marrow that saved the life of a 12-year-old boy, after a sample he had provided proved a match for the child.

Molchanov recalled the event on air with Army Radio in a clip re-broadcast Friday.

“A nurse called me and started to explain what it is to donate bone marrow. I said, ‘Sorry, I have my commanders, I’m a soldier and I can’t do it,’” he told the station in December. “When I went back to base and we were in the field training, my officer came and said, ‘Do you want to do this?’ I said, ‘Yes.’”

This photo published in December 2022, shows Maksym Molchanov, donating bone marrow to a 12-year-old boy. Molchanov was killed in a terror attack on August 31, 2023 (Courtesy)

The attacker behind Thursday’s ramming, identified as Daoud Abdel Razak Faiz, arrived at the Maccabim checkpoint from the Israeli side with a stolen truck, made a U-turn without entering the West Bank, and ran over a number of off-duty soldiers who were walking on the side of the road. The soldiers were walking from a nearby army post to a bus station in order to attend a team-building activity in Modiin.

Faiz then fled toward the Hashmonaim checkpoint, some seven kilometers (4.3 miles) away, where he was shot dead by security forces before he could manage to re-enter the West Bank.

The attack left one soldier dead, Molchanov, another in serious condition, and two more in reasonable condition.

A Palestinian teenager working at a stall on the side of the road was lightly hurt, and an Israeli couple, aged 25, were also lightly hurt after their car was hit by the attacker.

Faiz, a father of five, from the nearby West Bank town of Deir ‘Ammar, had a permit to enter Israel for work. He had no prior security offenses, according to the Shin Bet security agency.

However, the Defense Ministry said that he was apprehended by security guards at the Hashmonaim checkpoint two weeks earlier while allegedly drunk and refused to identify himself and cooperate. The ministry said the guards “used reasonable force” against Faiz.

The IDF has since measured Faiz’s home in preparation for its potential demolition.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

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