Tomer Ahimas

Staff Sgt. Tomer Yaakov Ahimas, 20, a signals soldier for the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade chief, from Lehavim, was slain fighting Hamas on October 7 near Kibbutz Nirim. His body was taken captive to Gaza, and the IDF determined on November 28 that he had been killed and that a funeral could be held. His brothers told Kan public radio that he and two other IDF soldiers arrived at Nirim and entered into a gun battle with dozens of Hamas terrorists. When the Brigade chief, Col. Asaf Hamami, was wounded, “Tomer sort of took control and led the battle against an unimaginable amount of terrorists, while he tried to care for the brigade chief and radio for help several times.” They said that residents of Nirim told them that were it not for the bravery of Ahimas, Hamami and Sgt. Kiril Brodski, “The kibbutz would have absorbed an even greater tragedy than it did that Saturday.” A funeral was held for him in Lehavim on November 29, 54 days after he was killed. He is survived by his parents, Moshe and Anat, and his siblings Maya, Gil, Eyal, and his twin brother Amir, as well as his girlfriend Shay-li Hen. At his funeral, his older brother Eyal noted, “You never once needed me to protect you, you were always able to manage on your own. I am sorry Tomer, that the one time in your life that you needed, I wasn’t there to protect you.”