Those We Have Lost

Lt. Yohai Dukhan, 26: Former yeshiva student fell in battle

Killed in hand-to-hand combat at Nahal Oz outpost on October 7

By ToI Staff 9 November 2023, 5:03 pm Edit

Yohai Dukhan who was killed in Kfar Aza on October 7, 2023. (Courtesy: Dukhan family)

Lt. Yohai Dukhan, 26, a Golani commander in the 13th Battalion, was killed on October 7 fighting at the Nahal Oz outpost.

A former yeshiva student from Kiryat Arba, Dukhan died while fighting in hand-to-hand combat with Hamas terrorists.

He is survived by his mother, Rivka, and his siblings Yehuda, Eliyahu and Tehila. He was buried on October 12 on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

His father, Alex Jonathan Dukhan, originally from France, was a member of a Kiryat Arba security team. He was killed in combat in November 2002 in Hebron.

“I, like many other officers, believe in our soldiers and in the people of Israel. The love for our country and our ability to contribute to it is what drives my family, and particularly my dad,” Yohai Dukhan said at a ceremony marking the completion of his army training course in March 2023, according to the army’s website. “It’s my heritage, and I am sure that he looks down at me today, and he will be proud of me.”

The author and biblical history professor Tony Akrich, who knew the family, paid tribute to Dukhan, recounting that he had studied at a yeshiva in Eilat.

Based on journals he wrote as a student, Akrich said Dukhan was in constant search “of the truth.”