Sgt. Or Avital, 20: Armored Corps soldier dreamt of hiking Israel Trail

Sgt. Or Menashe Avital, 20, a soldier in the 7th Armored Brigade, from Kibbutz Merom Golan, was killed on October 7 battling the Hamas invasion of the Nahal Oz IDF outpost.

With the start of the attack, Or and his team were sent in their tank toward the border fence, where they battled for two hours against Hamas invaders, managing to kill a number of them.

When they heard of the fighting going on inside Nahal Oz, they returned to the base and there continued to fight Hamas gunmen, until their tank was hit by an anti-tank missile. Another missile hit the area where Or was sitting, and he was killed, alongside the tank commander Staff Sgt. Yoni Golan.

His family was only notified four days later that he had been killed.

Or was buried in Merom Golan on October 12. He is survived by his parents, Eti and Arik, and his older sisters Almog and Ofek.

Born in Moshav Haniel near Netanya, Or’s family moved before his second birthday to Kibbutz Merom Golan in the Golan Heights, where he grew up, according to an IDF eulogy.

The youngest in his family, Or stood out for his sharp intellect even as a kid, his loved ones said, teaching himself computers, math and English and proving able to memorize huge amounts of information.

He was a class clown who loved to entertain his friends, and his favorite holiday was Purim, when he always invested in his costume, his family said. He was deeply connected to Israel, loving to explore nature and enjoying classic Israeli music.

Or fought to enlist in a combat unit, including gathering doctor’s recommendations, working out and eating right, and was thrilled to ultimately join the Armored Brigade on August 9, 2022, where he trained as a tank gunner.

His family said instead of embarking on a post-army trip around the world, Or was planning to hike the Israel Trail after his release, to explore his own homeland before visiting other countries.

His older sister, Ofek, wrote on an Instagram memorial page about how “every song on the radio reminds me of you.”

“The knowledge that you’ll remain 20 forever is incomprehensible, how can it be?” she wrote. “You had so many dreams to achieve, so many experiences still to go through… Thank you for 20 years of being with us, for the many laughs, the nonsense, the experiences, and also the fights.”

Ofek wrote, “More than my brother, you were my best friend. Thanks for us always being together, to the level of knowing everything about each other. For looking and acting like we’re twins, except you stole my height. Thanks for caring, supporting, protecting and helping me with everything even though I was actually your big sister.”

Or’s other sister, Almog, wrote online about the longing, the fact that “you don’t call, you don’t send a message that ‘everything is OK,’ you don’t come home for the weekend.”

“We don’t fall asleep in our disgusting uniforms on the couch anymore, you don’t smoke next to the window and make Mom mad that the smell is everywhere,” she continued. “You don’t eat everything in the kitchen at night when everyone is asleep and you don’t annoy us to ‘go for a walk, go do something.’”

Almog said it “hurts so much that these normal things will never be repeated, and now are just memories. You went to sleep permanently, in Merom Golan that you loved so much, sleeping in the most beautiful view there is.”

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