Cpt. Dor Sade (Alon), 22, a platoon commander in the Givati Brigade from Arugot, was killed fighting Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 8.
His family said he was home that weekend on leave when he got the call to head to the frontlines.
“He gave me a hug, from all his heart, warmly, a few good seconds long, and that’s how we parted,” his mother, Yael, told Channel 12 news.
His sister, Noam, said she received the same warm hug, and left with a “sense that he was leaving and not coming back… Before he left I shouted to my mom, ‘Don’t let him go! Don’t let him go!'”
Dor was killed when he and his team headed into the final house in Kfar Aza in which terrorists were still holed up and were ambushed.
He was buried on October 15 in Kfar Warburg. He is survived by his parents, Yael and David, and his older sisters Rani and Noam.
His maternal grandfather, Cpl. Yitzhak Bar-Sade, was killed fighting in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, almost exactly 50 years earlier.
“It’s a chilling coincidence,” Yael told Channel 12. “It’s the same notification that my mother got 50 years ago, in the same alleyway, the same yard,” she said, noting that the Hebrew dates on which they were killed were just one day apart.
“He really loved me, this grandson,” his grandmother, Mina Bar-Sade, told Channel 12. “And I loved him.”
In a notebook his mother discovered after his death, Sade had written: “I was gifted with an aspiration for excellence. I came to the world to work and not to waste time. I’m going to do something big with my life, this life that I received, and do as much good as possible in the world.”
He also wrote, she read on Channel 12, about his reasoning for going into a combat IDF role: “I want to give back to the country in the best way there is, like my grandfather Yitzhak gave, and all of my family after him.”
Noam shared online the eulogy she read for her brother at his funeral.
“To me you were a brother, a friend and the person I loved most in the world,” she wrote. “You were the definition of salt of the earth, the most beautiful Israeli, the biggest heart, with an addictive smile and rolling laughter. You were quiet, not loving attention, modest and bashful — the total opposite of me.”
Noam added that Dor “had the biggest heart that I knew,” noting that when he finished his medic training in the army he stocked his car with a first aid kit, “and you said that if you were driving and saw an accident or someone hurt, you wanted to help them… You were the first to notice others, to volunteer, to do everything possible to help.”
His girlfriend, Noa Madar, wrote on Facebook that she wanted to remember Dor first and foremost how he lived, and not just how he died.
“Dor taught me a lot about life, about love, about relationships,” she wrote, remembering him washing the dishes, opening the car door, his love for popcorn and Bamba filled with nougat. They learned how to argue with each other, she said, and to make up and learn from each other, “because that’s how it is in relationships.”
“Dor always looked toward the future,” she recalled, noting her plans to travel for several months and his response, “You and I are the real deal, I’m waiting for you here until you return.” They met in the army, she said, recalling “his captivating smile and his kind eyes, and very quickly I had chills.”
“So Dor, with all your jokes and your jibes… you really, really taught me so much.”
