Michal Aloni, mother of First sergeant Nisim Meytal z"l (20), a fighter in the Multi Dimensional unit, who fell together with three members of his unit in an explosion in a building in Jabalia, speaks about her immense pain.
Michal lost her father, David, a reserve paratrooper who fell in battle on the Golan Heights during the Six Day War in 1967, when she was only one year old. Nissim's father fell in Operation Blue and Brown in Lebanon in 1988.
Grandson Nissim fell 57 years after his grandfather and 36 years ago his father's cousin, Lt. Col. Amir Meytal fell. "The angel of death has knocked on our door for the third time," she said.
"At seven a.m. there was a knock on the door. I thought my neighbor wanted me to move my car. I went downstairs and saw three IDF officers. I told them to go away, but they didn't go," Michal said.
"I named him Nissim [miracles in Hebrew] after a boy with the same name in Leah Goldberg's book 'Miracles and Wonders,'" said Michal. "And that's how my Nissim was: strong and beautiful on the outside, and even more beautiful on the inside. Two weeks ago he came home for the last time. He didn't feel well and despite that, he returned to his unit in Gaza. 'I can't leave them alone,' he told me. I lost a child an amazing child; he was extremely modest. He was everyone's friend. Wherever he went he made more and more friends. I had many sleepless nights, with both my sons in the army, and one of my daughters served in reserve duty for seven months."
First sergeant Nisim Meytal was the youngest of five brothers and sisters. One of his brothers, Daniel, a fighter in a combat engineering unit, is fighting in Lebanon and received the message about the fall of his younger brother while on the northern border.