Uriel Cohen

Master Sgt. (res.) Uriel Cohen, 33, a logistics commander in the Givati Brigade from Tzur Hadassah, was killed fighting in southern Gaza on December 19.

He was buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on December 20. He is survived by his wife, Chana, two daughters, Shir, 2, and Lia, 6 months, his parents, Racheli and Emanuel, and his siblings.

Cohen worked as an economist for Bank Mizrahi since 2015, which said it was “pained by his death.”

His sister, Avital Cohen, told the Mako news site that Uriel “was a hero, from October 7 he was called up to reserve duty in Givati, and any free time he got he went to see his daughters, even just for an hour before going back. He was really an angel, he took care of everyone. There was never a time that I asked for help and he said no, no matter what he was doing.”

His wife, Chana, remembered him as a selfless man who was a devoted husband and father.

“He was a man of kindness, a man who always worried about others first and himself after,” Chana told Channel 14 news. “He loved this land, he died for this land, [he was] a wonderful person.”

Chana said she spoke to her husband during breaks in fighting, and he said he knew that he may not return home alive: “‘I think I will, but even if I don’t, there’s nothing to do about it.’ That’s what he said, with his head held high,” she recounted. “He was my best friend, a man held dear and beloved by everyone.”

She said that he was called up on October 7, and helped evacuate bodies from the sites of Hamas’s massacre in southern Israel: “He said it’s better to die [in battle] than like sheep to the slaughter as it was on October 7. ‘If I die, I want to die a meaningful death. I want to know that I did something.'”
Source: The Times of Israel