For more than 400 days after being critically wounded during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, Yona Brief tried to recover. But after losing both legs and enduring medically induced comas, the combat medic died in late November.
The dual Israeli-American citizen has come to symbolize the sacrifice by hundreds of fallen soldiers in what many in Israel see as a war for the country’s survival.
“He became a symbol of ‘Don’t quit,'” said his mother, Hazel. His father, David, compared him to the oil that lit the candelabra in the Hannukah story, miraculously burning longer than expected, according to Jewish tradition.
More than 800 Israeli soldiers have been killed since Hamas’ attack, about 300 of them on the initial day and the rest in Gaza or in the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Thousands of others have been wounded, many of them seriously. The war in Gaza has killed nearly 45,000 Palestinians, while over 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to local health officials.
Serving in Israel’s military is compulsory for most Jews. Soldiers’ service is revered, and Israelis see their sacrifice as deeply moving. Public opinion in previous wars has often been swayed by high soldier casualties.
Months before Brief was called into action on Oct. 7, he had been seriously wounded, also in his legs, by a pipe bomb during a commando raid while serving in the occupied West Bank.
The weekend of Oct. 7 was his first on duty after his recovery.
As militants attacked from Gaza, he and his seven-soldier commando unit raced to join the Israeli army’s house-by-house war in the communal farming villages, military bases and towns along the border.
His father said Brief’s unit was ordered to clear the Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where Hamas fighters ambushed them, killing two soldiers.
When Brief rushed to help one of them, he was shot 13 times.
Suddenly, his training as a medic was used to save himself.
His father said he cinched tourniquets around his mutilated legs and dragged himself and a fellow soldier into a nearby bullet-ravaged home. There, the family of Hadas Eilon-Carmi hid in a reinforced room and later described Brief as the soldier “full of blood.”
Brief was evacuated to a hospital hours later. The other soldier, his commanding officer, died at the scene.
The hospital stay was grueling, too. Brief was the most critically wounded patient from the Oct. 7 attack to be treated at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, the country’s largest hospital.
After his legs were amputated, he teetered between life and death.
He had more than 20 surgeries. His doctors told Israeli media he received more than 200 units of blood. The hospital brought specialists and surgeons from around the world in a bid to save him.
Eilon-Carmi’s family became close with his family, visiting Brief in the hospital and praying for his recovery.
“Yona represents everything I want an Israeli to be,” she said.
Brief’s determination to live became a source of inspiration for the doctors and medical staff, who had been overwhelmed by work and heartbreak in the early days of the war, said Steve Walz, the international spokesperson for Sheba Medical Center.
Though there were periods when Brief was in a medically induced coma, he was often awake and lucid, even lively.
He was grateful for what remained, his mother said.
He worked out in his hospital bed, raising a barbell above his head. He sang and danced with visitors. Once, he even left the hospital to spend the night in his family home but his medical issues brought him back.
Brief’s parents said there were sparks of joy in the nearly 14 months after he was wounded. Chefs cooked him special meals like sushi. Politicians and influencers visited, and Israel’s top musicians played by his bedside. He turned 23.
But while his parents said his spirit never wavered, his liver finally failed after months of heavy medication.
Hundreds attended his funeral, and tributes poured in from all walks of Israeli life.
“With Yona, every day he had to fight for this victory and that’s why his heroism is extraordinary,” said Chili Tropper, an Israeli opposition lawmaker who became close with Brief and his family. “For him, during 417 days, every single day was a war.”
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