Staff Sgt. Eden Alon Levy, 19: Raised in a family of women warriors

Staff Sgt. Eden Alon Levy, 19, a commander in the Home Front Command, from Nirit, was killed fighting Hamas terrorists at the Zikim training base on October 7.

Levy was on duty at the base when the Hamas onslaught began, and she and the other commanders told all the young trainees on base to seek shelter, saving their lives. Six of the commanders, including Levy, were killed in the battle, and all but one trainee emerged alive, and the base was ultimately not captured.

At 8 a.m., her family said, she sent one last message in their WhatsApp group chat: “I love you guys.”

She is survived by her parents, Inbar and Asher, and her four siblings, Roi, Nofar, Shani and Tamir. She was buried on October 8 in Kfar Saba.

Her loved ones said that aside from her love for the army — where she was exploring the possibility of pilot’s training — Eden loved to dance, and did so for a decade, including performances with a local dance troupe.

Her sister, Shani, told Channel 12 news that “Eden’s story proves without a doubt how much female combat soldiers can also do, and even more so [than men]. I am simply proud of her, and I hope that I can be brave like her,” added Shani, who is also currently serving in the IDF. “She’s simply a hero, a hero to everyone.”

“I miss her coming to annoy me, even when I had no strength, even when I would come home drained from the army,” Shani added. “I’d go straight to bed, fall on my face, and she’d always come and shout at me, ‘Shniki, what’s going on?’ I miss her bothering me. Please come back and annoy me.”

Her mother, Inbar — herself a police officer — told Ynet that “we can’t say we were surprised” by her heroic actions on October 7. “This is the home she grew up in. Eden had a lot of internal strength, a lot of determination. When she decided to do something, she saw it all the way through. It wasn’t surprising at all.”

Her sister, Nofar, who was also a combat soldier, added: “We were all raised like this, but none of us thought it would really come to this and she would really go way above and beyond expectations.”

Nofar told the Kan public broadcaster that Eden “really loved to dance, she was in a troupe of the south Sharon region, she was there for years, she was really good at it, full of energy.”

She noted that the family has found “some sort of comfort that she died as a hero, that she fought, she did what she believed in until the last moment, and she saved the lives of 100 soldiers which is crazy.”

If she could say one more thing to her, Nofar said: “I would say that I love her and that I’m so proud of her, and that she should take care of herself — even though it wouldn’t help. But mostly that I’m proud of her.”

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