A BRITISH-ISRAELI soldier has been killed in Gaza just two weeks after celebrating his 19th birthday.
Binyamin Needham had only been in Gaza for two days fighting for the Israel Defence Forces when he was fatally injured.
TwitterBinyamin Needham, 19, was killed in Gaza along with two others[/caption]
Born in Edgware, north London, Binyamin moved to Israel with his family when he was eight and was the youngest of six siblings.
He was serving as part of the Combat Engineering Corps of the 601st Battalion.
The 19-year-old had just finished his apprenticeship and professional training and had spent the weekend with his family before he was killed.
His sister Orli Ferris said Binyamin “died with a pure soul protecting his country”.
“He was such a wonderful, wonderful brother and we loved him with all our hearts and we always will,” she said, according to Mail Online.
“He will be missed by all of us and so many others, but we will always make sure we remember him in our hearts.
“Nothing will be the same now, but we are all very proud of what he did and he was also proud of what he was doing.
“We don’t know the exact details of what happened but he was only in Gaza for two days. He went in on Friday and died Sunday.”
Orli vowed to keep her brother’s “memory alive” and said her family has been left “heartbroken”.
“He was a wonderful boy and everyone who knew him said the same,” she said.
“He would go back to London every year or so to see his siblings who live there.”
Binyamin will be buried at a military funeral in Haifa on Tuesday after his body was returned to the family.
The IDF said it “shared the family’s grief” and would “continue to accompany them”.
It said soldier Ben Zussman, 22, from Jerusalum, was also killed in battle in the north of the Gaza Strip.
A friend of Zussman said “he had a sense of humour, and was a hard worker who was always invested, no matter the task”.
And Neriya Shaer, 36, from Yavne, was also killed on Sunday fighting in northern Gaza.
Shaer’s sister Hadar described her brother as a “humble person, with a heart of gold, a giver and loved his country”.
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