"We lit candles, Shabbat came in and we saw that the sky was red. Suddenly he called."

Corporal Eliyahu (Eli) Ben-Ami Ben-Hamo from Ashdod was killed a month before the liberation, in the difficult battle of the village of Sil in June 1982. A few days earlier he spoke with his sister: Return to the last encounter with loved ones who fell there | special

Yifat Rosenberg

03/05/2022

Tuesday, 03 May 2022, 16:30 Updated: 22:28

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Eliyahu (Eli) Ben Ami Ben Hamo,

a native of Ashdod, was orphaned by both his parents even before enlisting in the IDF, and was therefore recognized as a lone soldier, and supported by his brothers and sisters. When he came to Ashdod to pick up equipment.

"He came to pick up things from home, and came to my office that was in Passage," she recalls.

I saw him like that, that he wants-not-wants to hug.

I told him: 'Come to lunch', because I lived not far from the office, but he did not want to. "The day before, he was on holiday in Jerusalem with his brother and sister.

He even had time to talk on the phone once more.

It was a Friday evening, before the armored force in which Lehem fought left Kiryat Shmona for the battlefield.

"I was with my sister-in-law and we lit candles, and we saw that the sky was red," says Sima.

"Suddenly there was a phone ring, he was on the line and asked to speak to me."

"I, the secularist, asked him: 'What, do you call after Shabbat?', And he said: 'No, no, the rabbi asked us to call,'" she recalls.

"There was on the one hand a feeling that they were going to do something, and on the other hand of 'why didn't we stop him'."

"The rabbi asked us to call."

Eliyahu Ben Ami Ben Hamo (Photo: Courtesy of the Family)

Elijah was the youngest son of Mercedes and Joseph.

He was born on September 15, 1961 in Ashdod, after his family immigrated to Israel from Morocco.

This was a traditional family, and he received a religious education, studied at a high school yeshiva in Mevaseret Zion and later at a seder yeshiva in Kiryat Shmona - and excelled in his studies.

The Lebanon War broke out a month before Elijah was about to be released from his service as a tank driver, and he had already begun planning his future.

In the first week of the fighting, he traveled with an armored force from the 188th Brigade to the village of Sil in the entrances to Beirut, north of the town of Damor, where one of the most difficult battles of the war took place.

There Elijah also found his death, on the second day of the battle.

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"Passover eve could have been different."

Sima with the latest photo of her brother, Eli (Photo: Reuven Castro)

"The tank went up a hinge and had to retreat from it, and then it went back to the same place," she explains.

"He hijacked the missile and it was difficult to get to the tank to rescue."

Not only did he fall that day, but also one of the fighters was wounded in an attempt to rescue him.

He was buried four days later.

He was only 20.

His company members and commander, Effie Margie, accompany the family to this day, both on Memorial Day and the anniversary of his death.

"They are our 'prosthetic' brothers," she says.

Do you think what could have happened if he had been here with us?

"Certainly. In the thoughts of Pesach cleansing, when you are with yourself, then I begin to think that Pesach eve could have been different," Sima shares.

"He could have been with seven children, with a modest woman like him, noble like him, after he had already raised generations of students - his desire was to be an educator."

"His desire was to be an educator."

Eli Ben Ami Ben Hamo (Photo: Reuven Castro)

She said, "When we meet the brothers, we talk like that and laugh like that where he lived. I do not think he lived in Jerusalem - he probably lived in Lite or a settlement that allows [conditions] for large families."

"How much he liked to travel," she added, "they would rent minibuses and travel all over the country. He would probably scold me as usual, as at any meeting, if I were to criticize the government."

Her children have their own idea on the subject.

"My children, who did not know him, say: 'If David Eli had been on Seder night - they would not have said anything, but everything would have been in poetry.'

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