Staff Sgt. Dvir Rossler, 21: Golani soldier had ‘strength and charisma’
Killed battling the Hamas invasion of an IDF base near Gaza on October 7
Staff Sgt. Dvir Haim Rossler, 21, a Golani soldier from the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, was killed on October 7 battling a Hamas invasion of an IDF outpost next to the Gaza border.
When the air raid sirens began to ring on the base that Saturday morning, Dvir and two of his comrades ran for the bomb shelter as they’d always been instructed. They quickly realized that Hamas terrorists had also invaded the base, and were trying to enter the room.
Dvir held the door closed, and the terrorists attached explosives on the other side to blow it up. Dvir was killed in the explosion, but the two other soldiers with him survived.
He was buried on October 12 in Kedumim. He is survived by his parents, Ravit and Amichai, and his younger siblings Dotan, Gili and Ori.
Dvir attended local schools growing up, and then a yeshiva in Ra’anana for high school before enrolling in a pre-military academy, according to an online eulogy. He loved sports and trained in the capoeira martial art. He played the drums and liked fixing up old cars and motorcycles, and had a wide circle of friends from many stages of life, his loved ones said. His number one goal, they said, was to enlist in Golani, and he was filled with pride when he did.
Staff Sgt. Tzvi Cohen, Dvir’s comrade who was with him that day and survived the explosion, told Maariv that they met during training in December 2021, “and it was very easy to connect with him, and he’d immediately connect you with others and you know that if you’re close to him you won’t feel the difficulty and the strains of the training and exercises. He just spread joy.”
The pair stayed together in the army after training, Tzvi said, “and we became close friends… I saw so many times his generosity and his love not just to people but also to places we spent time in. Everyone knew that he was very special and you could always rely on him.”
His mother, Ravit, wrote a tribute in the Makor Rishon newspaper to “my Dviri, my firstborn, my pure and kind-hearted beloved, the brave and the heroic.”
“Wherever you went, your good qualities stood out,” she wrote. “At every school parent’s evening, we left proud from all the praise they had. You were so special, modest and humble with strength and charisma unique just to you, and of course they always said how handsome you were — beautiful on the outside but mostly on the inside.”
They were always told, she said, “how gentle and polite you were, always respectful and promoting peace. You knew how to be serious when needed but also incredibly funny. You loved to do impressions of us and to make the whole family laugh — all with a million-dollar smile.”
His father, Amichai, told Maariv that from 1st grade through 12th grade “people always told me that Dvir Haim was the connecting thread between everyone, the one who spread light to everyone.”
“Everyone knew that he could unite everyone, that was what characterized him,” he added. “He made everyone feel unique and special, everyone thought they were the most beloved friend in the life of Dvir Haim, but he gave that feeling to everyone.”
Amichai said he feels a sense of mission to share the feeling of joy and unity that Dvir did in his life: “I feel the need to continue spreading the joy for life that he gave to everyone, to strengthen all the people of Israel — that’s what he did in life and that’s what he’s doing now above.”
