Yehonatan Hagbi, 18, was murdered by Hamas terrorists in Moshav Yakhini near the Gaza border on October 7.
Hagbi was on the balcony of his grandparents’ home when the terrorists invaded the small town. Hamas shot him in the chest, and his family tried to treat his wounds since no ambulances were able to arrive amid the chaos, but he died within a few hours.
He is survived by his parents, Nir and Keren, and his siblings Ben Zion, Adi, Neta and Maya. He was buried on October 19 in Yakhini.
His family said he loved animals, was a vegetarian, dreamed of one day being a veterinarian and spent a great deal of time on his grandparents’ dairy farm. Though he grew up in a traditional but secular home, in recent years he had become more religious, his family said, and started to observe Shabbat.
His cousin Noya Hagby wrote on Facebook that there “are no words to describe the pain — to describe your smile and your laugh that we will never get to experience again. You were beloved by everyone, a good kid, funny and charming,” she wrote, recalling that they had spent the evening before his death celebrating the holiday together, “and even laughing at your hoarse voice.”
Yehonatan’s aunt, Liat, wrote online that he was “the heart of all of us! A boy who loved animals so much, always accepted those who were different, was a counselor in Bnei Akiva to dozens of children. A wonderful boy, whom everyone loved from the moment they met him.”
His father, Nir, a recently retired career IDF officer, was on vacation on October 7 when he learned of the attack and tried to send help to Yakhini in time, but it was too late.
“Yehonatan was a unique kid, you could call him a challenging kid,” his father, Nir, told Ynet. “Smiling, happy, he was supposed to enlist [in the IDF] in August, but he begged me to help him delay it until December. He said to me, ‘Dad, I want a little bit of freedom.'”
Nir said that Yehonatan had hoped to serve in the Oketz canine unit. “He was a kid who loved animals, he always found comfort in them. You can look in his cellphone, all of the photos are of cows. He was always in the dairy farm, he lived there.”
His father said they had plans to visit Amsterdam in November before he enlisted and had already bought tickets: “He said to me, ‘Dad when we’re in Holland, I want to go see cow farms.'”
Nir said that he tried to encourage Yehonatan to take a trip overseas with the rest of the time he had before enlisting, but that he wanted to stay instead in his beloved Yakhini, “And in truth, in some way, Yehonatan is staying in the moshav: He will be buried in Yakhini, the place he loved most in the world.”
