SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A Sacramento woman is remembering her grandson who was killed while serving as a soldier in the Israel-Hamas war. She says 20-year-old Yannai Kaminka died a hero while protecting others.
Kaminka's grandmother, Brenda Wolfson, says he was an accomplished piano player and had an affinity for being a real leader. But in his last days, one of his biggest accomplishments was finding his place taking care of his fellow soldiers.
"Yannai Kaminka was my first grandchild of 10, now 9, and Yannai would have been 21 on Oct. 30," said Wolfson.
Kaminka, an Israeli soldier, was killed during the first Hamas attack in Israel, just a few days shy of his 21st birthday.
Wolfson says he was an officer and part of a search and rescue unit in the Israeli army. At the time, he was guarding the Zikim training base and had been assigned a group of new recruits.
"At the end of the day, all of the new recruits and staff were saved," said Wolfson. "There was a small — it's called a kibbutz — a small village right behind the base. Nobody on that kibbutz was killed. They had enough time hearing the messages and the fire to mobilize themselves and fight off the terrorists," she said.
Kaminka did not survive the attack.
Wolfson was on her way to a planned vacation on the East Coast when she received the news he had been killed. She and her husband rerouted their flight and flew into Israel for the funeral.
"If there's any blessing in this, it's that at least they were able to recover his body. He could have a funeral," she said. "He died such a hero in saving so many lives but they got closure whereas there are other people whose families still have no closure."
Wolfson returned home from Israel Thursday night after staying there for almost 10 days. If there's one thing she'd like for people to know here is that families are still friends with their Palestinian neighbors.
"They couldn't come and visit now, but gifts were sent from Bethlehem, from other Palestinian towns and villages right near them where they were friends. We just hope that this killing stops soon and the hostages can come home, and that this will never happen again to anybody," said Wolfson.
Kaminka is survived by his mother and father, two brothers and a sister. Wolfson says the family in Israel is taking things day-by-day.
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