Aner Shapira

Staff Sergeant Aner Elyakim Shapira, born in Jerusalem in 2001, was a soldier in the Nahal Brigade's elite reconnaissance unit and a musician, and was on leave at the Nova festival near Re'im. During the Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023 he took cover with dozens of others in a small roadside bomb shelter and stationed himself at its entrance, catching the grenades thrown inside and hurling them back out. Video footage and survivor testimony establish that he threw back seven grenades before the eighth exploded and killed him, aged 22. Survivors of that shelter credit him with saving their lives; his stand became one of the most closely documented acts of individual courage of that day.