Sgt. Ofir Yeruchin, 19: Martial arts and soccer-loving Golani soldier

Sgt. Ofir Yeruchin, 19, a soldier with the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion, from Givat Shmuel, was killed on October 9, 2023, battling the Hamas invasion of southern Israel.

Ofir and his comrades were stationed at a small IDF outpost near Kibbutz Erez when the Hamas onslaught began. Together they fought back against the Hamas invaders for hours, managing to prevent them from conquering the base. His comrade, Sgt. Yaron Zohar, was killed by mortar fire.

Ofir was killed two days after the start of the attack while at the outpost right next to the border.

He was buried Petah Tikva on October 12. He is survived by his parents, Dina and Yaron, and his siblings Nadav, Aviv and Ella.

Born and raised in Givat Shmuel, outside Tel Aviv, Ofir was a huge soccer fan, including supporting the Israel national team as well as his beloved Barcelona.

He studied the Capoeira martial art for many years, and also played the drums, his family said, and also loved playing FIFA video games.

After finishing high school, Ofir enlisted in the IDF in December 2022 and served in the Golani Brigade.

His younger sister, Ella, wrote on Instagram that she is always looking at photos of Ofir “and remembering our moments together and smiling and then remembering that there won’t be any more of those, moments where you just say one word out of nowhere and we burst out laughing until our stomachs and cheeks hurt, where we watch Barca games together and you get annoyed and almost break something… when you come home from the army and tell us stories that are so funny that you don’t manage to speak and we’re all laughing before we even heard the story. I want all those moments back and I want you back.”

Ofir’s girlfriend, Gal Almog, wrote online that he was “always the best, the most handsome, the most successful… we loved each other so much, all the time and greatly. Everyone felt it, everyone knew that you and I were forever. You were the best boyfriend I could ask for myself, perfect for me, suited for me exactly and completing me in everything — everything I wasn’t, you were.”

Gal said Ofir “wasn’t afraid of anything, you were the bravest of anyone. You’re my hero. You always told me that deep inside, I know what to do. My love, I don’t know what to do when you’re not by my side. I feel so lost. You promised me you would take care of yourself, for me and for your mom, that’s what you said, and I’m sure that you did so until your last moment.”

A month after he was killed his mother, Dina, wrote on Facebook that all she wanted in life was to be a mother, “to raise this magic called Ofir, a frenzied child full of reddish curls and laughter, mischievous and happy, always in motion, to get excited with you when you were happy and to be pained with you when something didn’t go right (even when your soccer team lost).”

Dina said her dreams were to “see you grow every day, turn from a child into a teen into a handsome man whose smile doesn’t leave his face, to smell you and to hug and kiss you, to do your laundry to make the food you love, to spoil you and to give.”

A few months before he was killed, she said, “when you were lying in bed playing FIFA, I lay next to you and asked you want you want to do when you’re released from the army, and you said without thinking that you want to be a drummer, a drummer in a band, and without thinking twice I said, ‘Go for it, I’m with you.'”

Read more Those We Have Lost stories here.