Staff Sgt. Michael Ben Hamo, 21: Golani commander waged ‘heroic battle’
Killed battling Hamas terrorists near the Kissufim IDF outpost on October 7
Staff Sgt. Michael Ben Hamo, 21, a Golani squad commander from Rehovot, was killed on October 7 battling the Hamas invasion near Kibbutz Kissufim.
With news of the Hamas infiltration, he and his soldiers were sent to the front line to try and push back the terrorists and protect the kibbutz and the IDF outpost of Kissufim. There they fought against multiple cells of terrorists while under heavy gunfire, allowing other IDF troops to prepare for attack and join the fight to save the kibbutz. Both Michael and Staff Sgt. Adi Tzur were killed in the battle.
He was killed two days before he was slated to complete his mandatory IDF service. A few months later, his close friend, Cpt. Eyal Twito, was slain fighting in Gaza.
Michael was buried on October 11 in Rehovot, just over a week before his 22nd birthday. He is survived by his parents, Yael and Meir, and his siblings Ohad, Noa and Asaf.
Raised in a religious home in Rehovot, Michael attended a pre-army academy and then worked in agriculture for six months before enlisting in Golani.
His close friend, Moshe Hartman, wrote a song dedicated to Michael, called “Igulim Shel Layla” (Circles of the Night), and told Channel 12 news that his late friend was “one of the most beloved people I knew, at every stage and station of his life, people always would fall under his spell, he had this smile, something in his eyes, that you would look at and just fall in love.”
His girlfriend, Tamar Goldbart, wrote online that “even in your lifetime you were an angel and a hero, you didn’t need to die for us to know that.”
“Thank you for loving with all of your heart, thank you for leaving me with so many sweet memories,” she added. “Thank you for all the emotional wisdom and humility that I took from you throughout our relationship… you are in the sunrises and the sunsets and everything in between. I’ll love you forever.”
Michael’s sister, Noa, wrote on Facebook ahead of Memorial Day that she knows, “and everyone who knew you knows, that you would never have acted any differently — charging ahead, engaging the enemy, and the heroic battle you led was just a closing chord to who you were in life.”
“A true warrior, a professional, an idealist, the most moral, who chose to be like this, who always devoted himself to the values he believed in,” wrote Noa. “A young man who loved this country and this people with all of his soul. Who loved to live, who loved to laugh, who wanted to do good.”
After he was killed, his family found a diary he had written in before his death, including a passage that read: “My forefathers dreamed of the moment they would protect the State of Israel, and I am about to have that privilege. I hope that the day will come and I will prove that I would do everything for this country, above and beyond giving everything and risking it all for my comrades.”
