Staff Sgt. Yam Glass, 20: Lookout soldier ‘an angel’ whose journey ended

Staff Sgt. Yam Glass, 20, an observation soldier in the Border Defense Corps’s 414th unit, from Modiin, was killed when Hamas terrorists stormed her IDF base near Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7.

Glass’s death was not confirmed until November 3, and she was buried in Modiin on November 8.

“My Yam’chik, our angel, how can it be that your life journey is over?” her mother, Anat, said at her funeral. “You were so happy. We talked about your plans for the future, we planned a girls’ trip together… I know that sometimes I suffocated you with an abundance of love and worry… you always knew how to handle me and my outsized concerns.”

“You were a special girl, smart, witty, curious, accomplished and modest,” Anat continued. “Who will laugh at my tech skills? Who will call me every day?”

After news of her death finally arrived, her close friend Ofir Layfer, who met Yam in second grade, wrote on Facebook that her “heart is broken.”

“We waited a full month for an answer about you, and even when I had given up hope I still had a tiny thought that a miracle would happen and you would come home,” Layfer wrote.

“Yam, you are a hero. You weren’t murdered, you fell in battle. You protected us even in your family moments, and I had no doubt that is what would happen, that you did everything to protect us from afar,” she added. “You will always be in my head and my heart, guiding me and supporting me in any path I choose.”

Glass’s cousin, Yuval Ross, wrote on Facebook of their childhood memories and shared experiences.

“I want to thank you for such wonderful years, all of my childhood, you were such a big and significant part,” she wrote. “I got to have you for a shorter time than I thought, but you will always remain my beautiful, funny, talented, big-hearted cousin.”

Glass’s boyfriend, Alon Nahmias, paid tribute on Instagram to “the angel who visited my life.”

“You taught me that it was possible to believe in love, and you made every day on this star more beautiful,” wrote Nahmias.

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