Sgt. 1st Class Yakir Hexter, 26: Architecture student and avid runner

Sgt. First Class (res.) Yakir Hexter, 26, a soldier with the Combat Engineering Corps’ 8219th Battalion, from Jerusalem, was killed fighting Hamas in southern Gaza on January 8, 2024.

Yakir was slain in Khan Younis in a rocket-propelled grenade attack alongside his friend, comrade and former classmate, Sgt. First Class (res.) David Schwartz.

He was buried on January 9 on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. He is survived by his parents, Josh and Chaya, and his two younger brothers, Raphael and Ezra.

Born in Jerusalem to immigrant parents from the US, Yakir was the oldest in his family.

He attended the all-boys Horev yeshiva high school in the capital, and afterward continued to Yeshivat Har Etzion in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut – where he first met David Schwartz – as part of the hesder program combining yeshiva studies with army service.

Yakir served in the Combat Engineering Corps alongside David and the pair remained fast friends. They were both called up together for reserve duty on October 7, 2023, and they were killed together in south Gaza.

For a period, Yakir worked as a bartender at the popular Nocturno cafe in central Jerusalem, which wrote online about how much he “loved the city, his friends, his family and everyone around him. He appreciated the places he passed through, learned from them, researched, dug deeper, listened to diverse opinions and acted with humility and caring.”

After completing his army service and his time in yeshiva, Yakir began studying architecture at Ariel University in the West Bank, and was slated to begin his third year when the war began and he was called up to serve.

Yakir was athletic and loved barefoot running as well as bicycling, including taking part in charity campaigns to benefit those with disabilities. His friends and family dedicated the 2024 “Wheels of Love” bike ride to benefit the ALYN pediatric rehabilitation center in his honor. He had a lot of artistic talent, and also loved baseball, his family said.

His grandfather, Chris Hexter, told a local St. Louis news outlet that Yakir had a “willingness to explore new things, and the patience to steadily learn, and confidence that over time he would.”

“The thing about Yakir is that he was kind, competent, artistic, patient — one of the most central virtues you can have in life [is] to learn and never get riled,” added Chris. “He had a very high threshold for working through frustration.”

In a Times of Israel blog post, Yakir’s aunt, Sara Krengel, eulogized her nephew as “serious yet funny; talented and creative yet humble; brave and strong yet gentle and kind; smart yet silly; responsible yet daring and adventurous; diligent yet carefree… loving and engaged yet introspective and reserved; always striving for excellence yet never at the expense of others.”

In an Instagram video, his younger brother, Ezra, said that Yakir “was a great example to grow up to, always with a smile, always active, never rests, doesn’t take life for granted, just an amazing guy.”

Yakir, he said, “was an older brother that pushed me a lot throughout growing up. He never was satisfied with what I did, even if it was great, even if it was good – he always wanted me to do more.”

Ezra said his older brother “accepted lots of different people, [who were] very different than him and very different in general, and he made them feel like they’re not different. I think we could all get better in that, and learn from Yakir.”

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