Staff Sergeant Nave Yair Asulin OBM
Staff Sergeant Nave Yair Asulin OBMIDF Spokesperson

Staff Sergeant Nave Yair Asulin, a Kfir Brigade soldier from Carmit, who fell in battle this week in the northern Gaza Strip left behind a letter for his family.

Together with his cell phone, Asulin's parents received several notes he had written to them in case he would not return from battle.

He wrote: "This is the greatest privilege and mitzvah a Jew could get. They say 'Whoever saves one life from Israel it is like he saved the entire world.' If I'm going to die - let it be for the land of Israel.

"I hope that I will need to burn these pages after the war and they won't be used, but if so, let them at least have a good use. If you read this, the worst probably happened, but know with full heart, I'm proud of what I did and do not regret it for a moment. I think that it's a great privilege to continue in the path of our ancestors in the land of Israel and to fight for this kand and to avenge the blood of our Jewish brothers who were slaughtered for being Jews," he wrote at the beginning of the letter.

He asked his family not to be filled with sadness after his death. "Continue to live! Even though I'm not among you, I'm still with you and still see you and I am with you everywhere. Even at events that everyone here will have, I will be there, I promise. Smile, laugh, love, and take advantage of every moment of your life since you live once. It's not a cliche, it's the truth. Don't sink in sorrow about what happened since I'm in a better place. I will continue to watch over you from above wherever there's danger and I can protect you better.

"I leave you, but not forever - only in this physical world, which is anyway nonsense. As absurd as it may sound, in a few moments, without noticing, you will be with me here and we will laugh about everything that happened and I promise you stories that will sound crazy to you even in the next world," Asulin ends his final letter.