IDF reservist killed, another wounded in Gaza shooting attack

The gunman who killed Master Sgt. Alon Farkas remains at large, the IDF says.

By World Israel News Staff

An Israeli soldier fell in battle in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the IDF announced in a statement on Wednesday morning.

Master Sgt. Alon Farkas, a 27-year-old reservist from Kibbutz Kabri in northern Israel, served in the Paratrooper Brigade’s 6646th Reconnaissance Battalion.

According to an initial IDF probe, Farkas was killed after a terrorist opened fire on troops operating in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City.

Another soldier was seriously wounded in the ambush that killed Farkas, the IDF said. That soldier is currently hospitalized.

The gunman who killed Farkas and wounded the additional soldier fled the scene of the attack and was not captured by the IDF.

Farkas’s death came one day after a roadside bomb on an IDF convoy killed three soldiers in Jabaliya, northern Gaza.

The 425th IDF casualty since the invasion of the Gaza Strip began in late October 2023, Farkas is expected to be buried in Pardes Hannah on Thursday.

Adi Keinan, a spokesman for the high school that Farkas attended in Kabri, described the fallen soldier as a “very special person.”

Farkas was a “good student” and “excellent athlete,” Keinan told  the Hebrew-language news outlet Ynet.

Keinan recounted that two months ago, Farkas served as a chaperone for students during the school’s annual trip to Eilat.

He told students at the time that he expected to be called up to the reserves shortly, stressing the sense of duty he felt towards the country.

Farkas said he was going to serve because “this is what needs to be done, there is no choice,” Keinan said.

According to Ynet, in recent years Farkas resided in the southern city of Beersheba, as he studied at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

He is survived by his parents, Javier and Daniela, and a sister, Noa.