Staff Sgt. Sahar Meidani, 20: Golani soldier who ‘loved this country’
Killed battling against Hamas at the Nahal Oz IDF outpost on October 7
Staff Sgt. Sahar Meidani, 20, a Golani soldier from Kiryat Ekron, was killed on October 7 fighting against Hamas at the Nahal Oz IDF outpost.
Early that morning, his family said they spoke to him and he told them with some excitement that they were heading out to the border to counter the invasion — not knowing anything of its scope. When they spoke to him again a few hours later, he had been wounded in battle but reassured them he was OK. Around noon his mother said she called him again and someone answered the phone speaking Arabic.
While they were told that Sahar had been taken to a hospital, his family searched for several days for any sign of him before finally being notified that his body had been identified. They were later told that he was killed when the terrorists overran the bomb shelter on the base where he had taken cover with several other wounded soldiers, after refusing opportunities to flee the base.
A number of his friends were also killed that day, including Staff Sgt. Adir Bogale and Staff Sgt. Ori Karmi.
Sahar was buried on October 12 in Kiryat Ekron. He is survived by his parents, Hila and Liran, and his younger sister Stav.
Lt. Col. Tomer Grinberg, the commander of the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion, in which Sahar served, called the fallen soldier’s parents from inside Gaza to tell them that they were fighting in his name, and promising to come and visit the family “and answer all of your questions. We are family forever.” Grinberg was killed fighting in northern Gaza on December 12, before he ever got a chance to visit the Meidani family.
“Sahar was a wonderful child, pleasant, modest, a boy who spread light everywhere he went, light and happiness,” his mother, Hila, told Channel 14. They were surprised when he pushed to enlist in Golani, she said, because he wasn’t much of an early riser and had trouble sleeping. But he “got through basic training with blood and sweat,” she said. “He experienced difficult things but he never even complained.”
His sister, Stav, told the channel that Sahar “was the perfect brother in so many ways… we always knew how to defend each other,” she said. “I’m so proud of him it brings tears to my eyes — he was a hero.”
His father, Liran, told Channel 13 news that “Sahar grew up on values of loving the land of Israel, he was a boy that was all good, helped people, nobody came to me in the 20 years he was alive to ever complain about anything he did. Sahar was a moral boy, a gentle boy, he loved this country… he was a hero. He died for the holiness of this land.”
