The IDF Spokesperson on Monday announced that Major Isachar Natan, 28, from Kiryat Malachi, and Staff Sergeant Itay Shoham, 21, from Rosh Haayin, who both served as combat officers in the Commando Brigade, fell in battle in the Gaza Strip.
In addition, a soldier from the Oketz unit was seriously injured during Sunday’s fighting.
The Kiryat Malachi Municipality stated that Natan was a revered company commander in the Maglan unit and, among other things, led the force that located the terrorists who committed the terror attack in Elad a year and a half ago.
"On the eve of Simchat Torah, he participated in the celebrations until late at night, and in the morning, when he heard about the terrorist infiltrations, he quickly drove to the Gaza envelope and bravely saved families."
In a video published approximately three years ago by the IDF Spokesperson, Major Natan talks about his love for the Paratroopers Brigade and the feeling that his service was preventing a massacre in the Gaza envelope communities.
"During one of the recent rounds of fighting, when the brigade was on the Gaza front, we were in the Erez outpost," he recalls in the video. "We laid there the moment the round began, and they fired mortars at us. I looked 100 meters behind me, and I saw the community of Netiv Ha'asra. In the end, I felt that if I wasn't laying there - civilians who were 100-150 meters behind me would be hit by this; they would go in and, in the end, would massacre them."
At the beginning of the video, he states: "I chose combat because it's really challenging."
I am following my father, who fought in the Yom Kippur War, he was in the Shaked unit," he recalled. "To be a paratrooper is the honor of wearing the red beret and the tunic while on leave during the weekend. Standing at the door of the plane, a second before the jump, and understanding that it's scary, but in the end, it needs to be done in the best way possible."