Ohad Dahan
Ohad DahanIDF Spokesperson

Three IDF soldiers, Sgt. Lia Bin-Nun, Ssg. Ori Yitzhak Illouz, and Ssg. Ohad Dahan, were killed by a terrorist on the Egyptian border on Saturday. Noam Dahan, Ohad's cousin, spoke with Nissim Mishal and Anat Davidov on Radio 103FM and shared her pain.

"All of the cousins are very close. Ohad told us, 'Next time I'm on leave, we'll all go out to celebrate,' I guess that won't happen," she explained. "Ohad was an amazing kid, he was exemplary. He always wanted to be better than he was. He loved the country, he loved doing what he did. He had great aspirations for life and for himself. He was an amazing kid," she added.

"I can't believe I'm talking about him in the past tense, I have no words to describe what type of person he was, what kind of kid he was. He was good at anything he did. He was always happy, funny, and frivolous. He had a saying he would always say, 'I'm silly, I want to stay young forever'," she recalled.

She says, "He wanted to be a combat soldier no matter what. He said, 'If it's not combat, I'm not enlisting.' He had asthma and different medical issues that prevented him from enlisting in a combat unit, and he fought with all his might so he could be in combat. The moment he received Border Infantry, he didn't care, at least it was combat, at least he was doing something that contributed to the country. That's how he was raised and educated."

What did he want to do when he grew up?

"His father has a cellphone business, he would always say, 'I'll be with my father, and we'll open a business and do big things."

What do you remember about Ohad?

"His joy. His love for the world, his will to always make people happy, to always be there for them, to make sure his family stays close, that his cousins stay close, to make sure that everyone has it good."

So he was a central component of the family.

"Very much so. There was no room that he entered that didn't feel his presence. Everywhere we went, he came, and everywhere he was, you would feel that Ohad was there. You couldn't miss him. His joy would shine outwardly."

How are his younger siblings?

"They're broken."