Dudu Saada hosted Yehuda Dochan, brother of Lieutenant Yochai Dochan, platoon commander in the 13th Battalion of the Golani Brigade, who was killed in a heroic battle at the Nahal Oz outpost on Simchat Torah, October 7. He was 26 years old.
When Yochai was five years old, exactly 21 years ago in November 2002, their father, the late Alexander Yonatan, was killed in a battle with terrorists at the Route of Worshipers in Hevron. In that heroic battle, 12 soldiers and members of Kiryat Arba's security squad, of which their father was part of, were killed.
Yehuda says about his brother: "One of the things that characterized Yochai is that he was a man of truth, in the deep sense, and demanding of truth and honesty. He was a man of Torah, he studied for six years at the Ayelet Hashachar Yeshiva in Eilat, he worked hard both in Torah and working the land. He had a vineyard in Har Hevron, which he took great care of, he would also go work on a farm in Itamar. This is the way of life he learned from the Beit Midrash and from the values he grew up with. Yochai enlisted relatively late at the age of 24 – there were 18-year-old guys with him in his group."
Despite being a member of the bereaved family, Yochai chose to enlist as a combat soldier for the full 3-year service and went on to become an officer: "My mother had to go through some kind of procedure of the Ministry of Defense and the IDF, to sign forms for her sons to enlist in a combat unit. She signed for me, for Yochai and for Eliyahu."
"On Simchat Torah we were in Kiryat Arba, Yochai was in the army – at the Nahal Oz outpost. We heard on the morning of Simchat Torah that something was happening, my brother and I were both called up during the holiday, but until the end of the day we didn't really know what was going on. For three long days we tried to contact Yochai but realized that we were at war and he was probably fighting. On the night between Tuesday and Wednesday I went to my mother to calm her down a bit, but then at 3am there was a knock on the door, officers from the army came to announce Yohai's death. It was a very difficult situation."
"How do we console ourselves? - We are people of faith and values, and suddenly we have been thrown into a reality that requires us to embed our faith into the actual reality of life. We are following a path of faith and survival, and inevitably also to think about the way he fell, and to know that he would want us to get up."
"During the shiva days we opened letters that he wrote, which revealed his inner world. A person who writes in a notebook does not think that people will find it, but writes to himself about his feelings, his thoughts, his deepest things, and it is some kind of window that reaches deep into the most authentic inner soul. Now we have been exposed to what a great man he was. He always spoke positively the Jewish people, spoke of longing for his yeshiva, for Torah study, for holiness."
"Yochai was a hero still in his life, not only in the battle of heroism in which he was killed. I am proud of him. You must understand that heroism does not come as an isolated action. Yochai worked for this with great effort. Effort for Torah and of correcting his standards. This is not something that just exists in you, but you must develop it. Heroism is revealed precisely in the small things - to push yourself in the morning. Yochai persevered and invested in his studies, was careful to guard his tongue. On Simchat Torah he was at the war room in Nahal Oz, they waged a heroic battle there for long hours, tried to protect the female observers there.
Even after the war room began to burn and they had the option of escaping – he and his friend Itai chose to stay and try to save others, until they were left fighting the terrorists with their bare hands. Yochai chose to put the nation of Israel before himself. This is also what I expect from our leaders now, to put the political games aside and win without political considerations on this or that throne. The echo of the blood of our brothers and sisters cries out to us from the ground. The people of Israel need to wake up. Make Gaza Jewish, settle the land. A people that rises like a lioness, leaps up like a lion.
Yochai was buried on Mount Herzl, along with the best of our sons and daughters who were killed in this war in heroic battles saving lives.