An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed battling Palestinian terrorists in the northern Gaza Strip, the military announced on Sunday.
The slain man was named as Staff Sgt. Yuval Shoham, 22, of the 401st Armored Brigade’s 9th Battalion, from Jerusalem.
On Monday morning, following an inquiry into the incident, the IDF said that he died due to an “operational accident in a tank.”
Shoham’s parents learned of his death while on a Chanukah trip in southern Israel. They were planning to deliver a package to him when they were notified by military officers at his base.
Shoham’s brother Shachar told Ynet that Yuval knew 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023 into the Gaza Strip and was later murdered by Hamas.
“Bringing back the hostages was a very dear issue to him,” Shachar was quoted as saying. “I heard that he would traverse the Gaza Strip and call out: ‘Hersh’.”
Goldberg-Polin’s parents, John and Rachel, were close friends of Yuval Shoham’s parents, Effi and Oshrat, Shachar said.
“They both went to the same school, in the same Bnei Akiva branch, in the same neighborhood. I know that Hersh being there connected [Yuval deeper to his mission in Gaza]. But his passion toward his mission did not waver, even after we heard that Hersh was no longer with us,” Shachar said.
Yuval “was a man of intellect; every field interested him. He would talk about intellectual stuff and current events, history and literature, anything. You can tell from his photo, one of the large photos of Yuval, that he had good eyes and a benevolent countenance, and that’s how he would treat people, with a welcoming and embracing spirit. He had a big embrace. That’s how he was,” Shachar told Ynet.
The death toll among Israeli troops since the start of the Gaza ground incursion on Oct. 27, 2023, stands at 392, and at 824 on all fronts since the Hamas-led massacre on Oct. 7, 2023.
Additionally, Ch. Insp. Arnon Zamora, a member of the Israel Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit, was fatally wounded during a hostage-rescue mission in Gaza in June, and civilian defense contractor Liron Yitzhak was mortally wounded there in May.
