The New Jersey-born Israeli soldier who was killed on Saturday in a Hamas attack was not even required to be at his military base that day, according to a relative. As The Daily Beast first reported, Itay Glisko’s family in the U.S. finally learned late Tuesday that his body had been found, capping an excruciating four-day wait in which they had no idea what had happened to their “beautiful boy.” Glisko, 20, was celebrating the Jewish holiday Simchat Torah and had exchanged work shifts with another soldier, his Israel-based cousin, Dana Glisko, told the Daily Voice. She said she talked to him on Saturday morning when he notified her that the base had been overwhelmed and she didn’t hear from him again. At 2 a.m. on Wednesday, she received a visit from Israel Defense Forces officials who informed her of Itay’s death. His family said that he helped save other soldiers before he was shot and killed. “He was a hero,” Dana said. “He was a fighter. He wasn’t supposed to die this way.” Itay was one of the roughly 1,500 victims of the Hamas attacks over the weekend.
