Maj. Avi Hovelashvili, 26: Career officer never got to meet his son

Maj. Avraham “Avi” Hovelashvili, 26, deputy commander of the Caracal Battalion, from Ashdod, was killed on October 7 while battling the Hamas invasion of southern Israel.

With the start of the attack, Avi was home in Ashdod with his wife and baby. When he started to hear reports of a Hamas invasion near Kibbutz Sufa, where his Caracal comrades were operating, Avi jumped into uniform and set off to join them, according to an IDF eulogy.

On his way, Avi encountered a cell of terrorists at the Sa’ad Junction not far from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and together with two police officers they engaged in a firefight, killing several of them. Avi alerted authorities to the large amount of terrorists in the area, and continued southward to meet up with his comrades. On his way, Avi encountered another group of terrorists, not far from Re’im, and got out of his car to fight against them and was killed.

He was buried on October 11 in Ashdod. He is survived by his wife, Shoshi, their daughter Romi, 6 months, his parents, Simon and Rivka, and his brother, Daniel. Seven months after Avraham was killed, his son, Imri Avraham, was born.

Born and raised in Ashdod, Avi — who always stood out with his bright red hair — attended schools in the city, focusing his studies during high school on computers and physics. He loved soccer, particularly the Barcelona team, even flying overseas to watch them play with great excitement.

At age 17 he met Shoshi, when they worked together at the same events hall, and they felt an immediate “click,” later finding out that their mothers had been friends when they were toddlers.

Avi enlisted in the IDF in November 2015, placed in the mixed-gender Caracal Battalion, serving along the Egyptian border. He completed a squad commanders course and later an officer’s course, serving in a number of commander positions over the years, including overseeing trainees and as a deputy company commander and later operations officer in a number of different battalions. Two weeks before he was killed, he took up the role of deputy commander of the Caracal Battalion, where he had got his start.

Avi and Shoshi got married in a COVID-delayed ceremony in June 2021, and their daughter, Romi, was born in March 2023, just over six months before Avi was killed. About two weeks before October 7, the couple learned that Shoshi was pregnant with their second child. Avi — who never learned the gender of the baby — suggested that if it was a boy he would be called Imri. In May 2024, Imri Avraham Hovelashvili was born.

“He was a person with a huge heart, and if he had a chance to save people he didn’t know, he would choose to do it every time,” Shoshi told a local news outlet, marking one year since Avi was killed.

While she was giving birth, she said, “I felt that he was with me and watching over me at every moment. The midwives put a photo of him across from me with a sentence that he would always say to me: ‘My life, you’re a champion, it’s all easy for you, you can do anything’ — and that made it easier for me.”

Shoshi said she is worried about when the time comes that their children “will start to talk and will ask questions. But I hope that I will succeed in describing their father exactly as he was — a hero. That he loved them, that he will always be in our hearts and protecting us from above. And that they should be proud of him.”

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