The heartbroken grandfather of a “heroic” British-Israeli soldier killed as he rescued hostages from Hamas said he has “lost an entire world”.
Yosef Guedalia, 22, was shot as he fought gunmen at Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the attack by Hamas who killed more than 1,000 people in southern Israel on October 7.
His grandfather Isidore Zuckerbrod, whose parents survived the Holocaust, told the PA news agency that Mr Guedalia returned to the kibbutz four times to rescue hostages as Hamas militants shot at him.
Hamas militants dragged his body towards the border to use as a “dead hostage”, Mr Zuckerbrod said, but Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers spotted them using a drone and shot the gunmen before retrieving their fallen comrade.
The 78-year-old, a retired GP who grew up in Manchester after the Second World War, said: “Every person who dies is a world in themself – if you save one life you save the whole world.
“Yosef’s loss to me is the loss of a whole world.
“He was the pride of the family, as is his older brother (Asher Guedalia) who went straight back into the army after our week of mourning.
“We are incredibly proud of him – he was a real hero.
“His mission was to get to the (Kfar Aza) kibbutz. He went into the kibbutz four times, saving hostages and taking out hostages.”
Mr Zuckerbrod was born in Krakow just weeks after the Second World War ended in Europe.
His Polish-Jewish parents escaped a concentration camp with their two children in 1942 but the family were later separated.
He said his elder siblings were killed by Poles who had agreed to hide them but feared persecution by the Nazis, while his parents fled to Krakow after they were liberated by the Soviet army.
Mr Zuckerbrod said: “Hamas’s pogrom is part of one long, tragic story for the Jewish people.
“In the end, the fate of the Jews was the same wherever they went (but) I never thought it would happen in Israel, not in my wildest imagination.
“This time we’ve got nowhere to run.”
