Sgt. Eitan Newman

May 11, 2004 - Sgt. Eitan Newman, 21, of Jerusalem was killed with five other soldiers when Palestinian gunmen detonated a mine under their armored personal carrier in the Gaza Strip.

Newman and his Givati Brigade comrades were returning from an operation in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City to destroy weapons factories when their APC was hit. The blast detonated left-over explosives the engineering unit was transporting, destroying the APC and killing the soldiers instantly.

Newman attended the capital's Himmelfarb High School and was a counselor in the Bnei Akiva movement. Before being drafted, he spent 18 months in the Hemdat preparatory program. The director of the program, Shiloh Plesser, said that Newman "had qualities which are rather rare today: an appreciation of what is good and respect for others and his parents." Whenever he had leave from the army, he would volunteer to coach the students at Hemdat in their Torah studies.

A friend related that, "Eitan loved the army very much. It was important to him to serve in a combat unit. He was a boy with a heart of gold who always wanted to give."

A high school teacher of Eitan's, Yedaya Levine, noted that he had an acute sense of justice, and "if something wasn't right, he would be angry. He was always ready to help, to volunteer with anything."

Newman's father, Dr. Michael Newman, is a researcher at Jerusalem's Hadassah-University Hospital who made aliya from England in 1980. His mother, Sarah, is a native of Australia.

Sgt. Eitan Newman was buried at the Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem. He is survived by his parents and two brothers, Gideon, 26, and Zvi, 23.