Bereaved families attend Chanukah lighting at IDF base attacked on Oct. 7

On the morning of October 7, 2023, 10 terrorists stormed the base, sparking a two-hour shootout that claimed the lives of seven soldiers; 14 months later, even as southern Israel rebuilds, the scars of that day linger.

By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS

The memorial wall at the entrance to this IDF base near the Gaza Strip, adjacent to an outdoor Chanukah menorah, is adorned with the pictures of the eight Israeli soldiers who served here and were killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

Their sacrifice was illuminated anew during the eight-day holiday of lights, as bereaved family members joined soldiers, officers and commanders on Wednesday night seeking solace at the base where their loved ones were stationed.

“This is a holiday of light even though you are dealing with exiting the darkness and coming back to the light,” the head of Home Front Command Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo told the bereaved families. “But it is your heroism that gives us the strength to continue.

Bereaved families members at the Urim Base memorial near the Gaza Strip on Jan. 1, 2025. Photo by Rina Castelnuovo.

“Every time it is difficult to come here, but I feel the need and it is important for us to be here,” said Leah Ayash, whose 19-year-old son Sgt. Itamar Avraham Ayash was killed on the base on Oct. 7. She came to the candle lighting and dinner at the base with her 14-year-old son Yochai.

“We had breakfast and I laundered his pants,” recounted Etti Elazar matter-of-factly. Her son Master Sgt. (res.) Tomer Dolev, 34, rushed back from his vacation in Sinai after receiving an emergency military call-up order.

“We arranged to meet the next day,” she said. Dolev was killed fighting in a nearby agricultural community on Oct. 8.

Kabbalist Rabbi Yaakov Ifergan offered words of comfort at the holiday ceremony by noting that the gematria, or numerology, of the Hebrew words “darkness” and “light” were the same as the word “Israel,” before offering blessings to the soldiers in the room, some of whom kissed his hand in reverence.

“Every day I still cry,” said Hanna Cohen, her eyes welling up with tears. Her 19-year-old daughter Sgt. Danit Cohen was among those killed at the base. “I still cannot bring myself to the place on the base where she was killed. I am still waiting for her to come back.”

David Farash, whose 38-year-old ultra-Orthodox son Sgt. Major Aharon Farash was killed, noted that his wife could not visit any other place attacked during the massacre, yet felt comforted coming to the military base. “There is no other choice but to go on living,” he said.

A group of 10 terrorists stormed the base on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023. They were killed in a two-hour-long shootout that left seven soldiers dead. Fourteen months later, amid the rebirth underway in southern Israel, the scars remain.

OC Home Front Command Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo speaks with bereaved families at the IDF’s Urim Base near Gaza on Jan. 1, 2025. Photo by Rina Castelnuovo.

“It is hard to talk about light when you are in darkness, said Col. Asher Benishti, who heads the IDF Home Front Command’s Southern District and lives in a community near the border with Gaza.

“But in a similar way to the lights of Chanukah that remind us of the darkness that engulfed us and the light we are in today, a year and several months ago we were in total darkness and today we can see specks of light which reduce if don’t totally remove the darkness. But without the darkness we would not know that there is light,” he said.

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