Hundreds of people accompanied Sergeant Yonatan Aharon Greenblatt of the 14th to his rest in the Mount Herzl cemetery this afternoon (Sunday). The soldier, a Givat fighter, died tonight of his wounds, after being hit by an anti-tank missile in Gaza about a week ago.
Greenblatt’s grandfather, Rabbi Moti, one of the founders of the settlement of Neve Dekalim in Gush Katif who moved with his family to the settlement of Nitzan, paid tribute to him: “I asked him how the army didn’t release him when his second grandfather passed away, he replied, ‘If I had asked – they wouldn’t have let me go back.’ A happy, close-knit family will be difficult without you, but help us from above.”
His uncle, Aviad, added in his obituary: “How did heroes fall? Yoni, our beloved nephew, how much we prayed for you. We have been praying for you and our heroic soldiers for months. Yoni is our hero child. A child of a home. A humble child. You became a guy like Erezim. You became a hero for all of us. Israel. You came out again and again. We prayed for a miracle. There will be more happy days in our family.”
Lt. Col. David Mordechai Ron eulogized on behalf of the IDF: “Yonathan, you mobilized and fought with your friends against a cruel enemy. You were a smiling and pleasant person with a big heart. Your friends saw you as the heart of the department. You were a secret partner and a true friend to your friends. You were an excellent fighter, and always You volunteered to help. On Saturday, July 20th, you were seriously injured by an enemy missile.
The head of the Neve Dekalim Hesder Yeshiva in Ashdod, Rabbi David Gabrieli, also paid tribute to his student: “A difficult loss to digest. Yoni was an amazing personality full of strength and humility. A student with enormous bravery in the spiritual and military aspects, he was a priest who always blessed all the students with a priestly prayer. As a small example of his devotion, Two years ago, on Jerusalem Day, he saw the Hamas flag being raised, and he returned to the march with the flag and with a shy and victorious smile. He did not give up even though he was carrying an injury with him. His parents always prayed for him and encouraged him, and his father often came to the Yeshiva to study with him.
Yonatan left behind his parents, her father and Israela, his twin brother Arel, a student at the Hesder yeshiva in Dimona, and four younger brothers.
