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Israeli soldier Amichai Oster, son of former JTA writer and editor, is killed in Gaza
(JTA) — Amichai Oster, 24, an Israeli-American touring the United States after his service in an Israeli combat unit, was observing Shabbat and Shemini Atzeret at a Salt Lake City Chabad when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7.
“Of all the terrified faces on the morning of October 7th, I remember Amichai’s anguished features distinctly,” Chabad’s Rabbi Avremi Zippel recalled in an Instagram post. “He needed to go back.”
Oster received an official draft notice while in Salt Lake City and returned to Israel to join the army’s 7020 reserve battalion. On Monday, Oster, a sergeant in the reserves and the son of a former writer and editor for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, died fighting in the northern Gaza Strip, killed by an explosive device that also injured two other soldiers.
“Amichai did indeed rush here to fight for his country and for all of us,” his mother, Marcy Oster, said at his funeral Tuesday. “He was here doing exactly what he wanted to be doing. He died doing what he came home to do.”
Marcy Oster, who wrote breaking news stories for JTA for more than a decade, and her husband Howard, deputy director of the internal medicine division at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital, moved to Israel from Cleveland when Amichai was 1. The family lives in the West Bank settlement of Karnei Shomron, in a neighborhood Marcy once described as “overwhelmingly American.”
“Marcy always spoke, and sometimes wrote, so proudly and movingly about her five children and the lives she and her family had made in Israel,” said Ami Eden, CEO of 70 Faces Media, JTA’s parent company. “Through her work managing JTA’s news briefs, she helped our readers feel connected to Jewish communities worldwide. Amichai’s death is a tragic example — and a deeply personal one for all of us at 70 Faces Media who worked with Marcy — of the way hearts are breaking in Israel and around the world since Oct. 7.”
Friends and family described Amichai as soft-spoken, charming, ever-smiling and eager to volunteer for those needing his help, including people with special needs.
After his initial army service he spent time traveling in Asia and the United States, a rite of passage for many Israelis post-army. On the road he would frequently sleep in an old Ford Crown Victoria that he bought in Florida. He was slightly embarrassed by the police equipment it retained, including a riot-busting bumper, recalled Ron Kampeas, JTA’s Washington bureau chief, who hosted Oster at his Northern Virginia home last year. Oster also described stopping in a Virginia forest on the fast day of Tisha B’av. His prayers were interrupted by a rattlesnake, a video of which he was proud to share with friends and acquaintances.
“He was interested in everything. If he was curious about something, he searched the internet and read everything he could,” his mother, currently news editor at Ynetnews, recalled in her eulogy. His interests included “music, art, science, photography, animals, plants [and] decorating cakes. He loved his travels both far and near and he loved this land, all of it.” He planned to complete the Israel National Trail, a 683-mile route that traverses the country from north to south. After the war, he also planned to return to the United States and continue his travels, she said, before starting university.
In addition to his parents, Oster is survived by three sisters, Sarah, Emunah and Tova, and a younger brother, Jonathan, a soldier who is serving in southern Israel.
According to the IDF, 175 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat during the army’s operations in Gaza following the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7.
Among those eulogizing Oster was Igal Lahav, head of the Karnei Shomron Council. “When we speak of incredible, Zionist and value-driven youth who would leave everything behind and rush into the fire to defend the country, we are talking about young people like Amichai,” Lahav wrote on Facebook.
In an essay she wrote on the 10th anniversary of their decision to move to Israel, Marcy Oster wrote that “we knew Israel would be the best place to raise our Jewish children, where they would learn about their Jewish past, participate in their Jewish present and prepare for their Jewish future, and where we would have a front-row seat to Jewish history.”
At Amichai’s funeral, she spoke about a conversation with her oldest son when he was home on a recent two-day leave from Gaza.
“I told them that I felt responsible for the fact that he was fighting in a war and he didn’t make the decision to come on aliyah — that we made it for him,” she said. “He thought about it for a moment and replied, ‘Ima, what makes you think that if you never made aliyah that I would not have come here to fight for our country?’”
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The post Israeli soldier Amichai Oster, son of former JTA writer and editor, is killed in Gaza appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.