Yaniv, the father of staff sergeant Dolev Amouyal, a soldier from the 13th battalion who fell in battle in Nahal Oz after coming to assist his friends, told Kan about his son's heroism.
Dolev was killed by a Kornet missile strike while evacuating wounded from an attacked position. He was supposed to go on a trip after his discharge and then on a post-release vacation on October 8th - but on the morning of October 7th, he went to the Gaza region to fight. On the morning of the massacre, his friend who was in the area said to him: 'Listen, Dolev, if help doesn't arrive within an hour, we're going to die here'. He hurried and drove to the area without hesitating.
Yaniv recounted the events of October 7th. "I woke up from a phone call and immediately alerted Dolev. He woke up and called his friend at the Nahal Oz base, and was determined to get there after what he heard from him. He wanted to take the car and go immediately, I stopped him because he had only one magazine".
"At 12:00 I took him to Ashdod, and there he joined other fighters and reached the Gaza region. I dropped him off there, we hugged and that was the last time I saw him. On the way he already told me 'Dad, I have a bad feeling'. I tried to encourage him and told him it's good that he's scared and if he was scaared, he would protect himself", the father added.
He also shared his final conversation:"I spoke with Dolev around 16:00 and he told me they were evacuating wounded. He argued with a soldier about one of the vehicles and insisted on taking his place in the vehicle. He sent farewell messages to me, his grandmother, and his mother. I managed to talk to him a few minutes before he was killed. In that conversation, he said: 'Dad, you need to go be with mom and Or', his brother, and 'you need to support each other'".
"He was a very special child. Handsome, enlightened, joyful, and always smiling - there isn't a single photo in which he isn't smiling. Anyone who met him fell in love with him from the first second. He was a born leader. The loss for us is enormous and tore us all apart. We are a very close-knit family, and he was the eldest grandchild and eldest child", he concluded.