Maj. Oriel Bibi, 30: IDF career officer was studying medicine

Maj. Oriel Bibi, 30, an officer in the Paratroopers Brigade, from Shlomit, was killed on October 7 battling the Hamas invasion of southern Israel.

Oriel was home the morning of the attack in Shlomit, a small town near the Egyptian border. He was called up with the start of the Hamas onslaught and was heading towards his base, near Kibbutz Shomria, in order to get armed and head to the front lines for battle.

On the way to the base, he encountered a cell of Hamas terrorists at the Ma’on Junction not far from Kibbutz Nir Oz. He was shot in the neck but managed to tie a tourniquet and keep fighting until he succumbed to his wounds. His family was not informed that he was killed until three days later.

Oriel was buried in Kfar Saba on October 10. He is survived by his wife, Nechama, their two children, Ya’ara, 4, and Gefen, 2, his parents, Yael and Tzion and his sisters Shalhevet and Ortal.

He also had an adopted sister, Tzipora, with Down syndrome, who died when he was 19.

Born and raised in Kfar Saba, he attended local religious Zionist schools, according to a municipal eulogy. From a young age he volunteered with the Magen David Adom ambulance service, and his instructor said he was “one of the outstanding trainees, characterized by humanity and human relations, and a man of values.”

After finishing high school, Oriel enlisted in the IDF in 2013, joining the Paratroopers Brigade, and completed a squad commander’s course and later an officer’s course. He served as a platoon commander, then a deputy company commander and later a company commander in a number of positions. In 2021, he received a citation for distinguished service from the chief of staff.

That same year, Oriel stepped away from active military duties to begin three years of study in emergency medicine at Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, after which he was slated to return to the army as a deputy battalion commander.

He and his wife Nechama settled in the small town of Shlomit not far from the Egyptian border, where they were raising their two young daughters. About a month before Oriel was killed, the family moved into their new home in the community.

Nechama told Ynet that the morning of the attack, at 6:40 a.m., as she was sitting in complete darkness in their reinforced room, “Oriel entered with his tallit, in an image I’ll never forget. He opened the door and a wave of light came inside. He looked for a moment like an angel.”

His sister, Ortal, said at a memorial that her brother was all about “giving to others. Oriel was a great man of small deeds that are expected of all of us, but we all know it’s hard to do them… He did so many things that other people don’t do,” she said, including always calling loved ones for their birthdays and memorializing the fallen. “It was important to him that in every family trip, we would visit a memorial, he always said that we are here thanks to those who are no longer with us.”

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