A 21-year-old Israeli-Canadian man, Netta Epstein, died trying to save his girlfriend from a live hand grenade.
Mr. Epstein’s death was confirmed by Global Affairs Canada on Oct. 15, the most recent of five Canadians that have been killed after Israel was attacked by the terrorist organization Hamas in the early hours of Oct. 7. The attacks started at approximately 6:30 a.m. local time and involved air strikes followed by terrorists shooting civilians on the ground in Israeli cities near the Gaza Strip.
His mother, Ayelet Shachar-Epstein, told reporters her son threw himself onto a live hand grenade after it was thrown into the safe room in an apartment at Kfar Aza kibbutz, a small farming community in southern Israel, where Mr. Epstein and his girlfriend Irene Shavit were hiding.
Ms. Shavit survived the attack and was rescued later that day by Israeli soldiers.
Ms. Shachar-Epstein said her son “jumped onto the grenade, like he was trained in the army.” His mother said he sacrificed his life to save Ms. Shavit as Hamas terrorists “burst into their room and threw grenades into the apartment.”
Mr. Epstein’s mother described him as a “beautiful child with wide brown eyes and long curly hair” who turned into “a beautiful man with a huge heart; caring and giving to all his surroundings. He volunteered for a year with kids with special needs from broken homes. He would read to them and play soccer with them. They all loved him so much.”
Mr. Epstein was born in Israel, but held Canadian citizenship through his mother, a Canadian, and his grandmother, born in Montreal. He served as an Israeli Defence combat soldier until August, when his mandatory service period ended.
He leaves behind two sisters, Rona and Alma-Ruth, as well as his father, mother, and extended family members. His mother, who was hiding in a different apartment in the same complex, said she was receiving text messages from her son during the attack up until the end. She lost her mother and two brothers-in-law, and her nephew is still missing.
Mr. Epstein described hearing yelling in Hebrew outside his apartment and “massive shooting.”
“There’s a car that’s beeping all the time and I don’t understand what’s going on. They’re outside my apartment,” he texted his mother. “We still hear them.”
The next message the mother received was from his son’s girlfriend. “He’s been shot by a shotgun and there was a grenade and I’m hiding under the bed,” she wrote.
Other Canadians who have been confirmed killed in the attacks are Ben Mizrachi, Alexandre Look, and Shir Gregory, a 22-year-old woman, all of whom were attending a music festival when Hamas gunmen opened fire on the crowd. Adi Vital-Kaploun, 33, who held dual Israeli-Canadian citizenship, a mother of a 4-month-old son and 4-year-old son, was shot and killed in front of her children by Hamas terrorists.
