Cirkel, Yonatan

Yonatan, son of Suzy and Moshe Cirkel, was born in Paris in 1975. He immigrated to Israel with his parents in August 1978. At first they lived in Rehovot and in 1979 moved to Kibbutz Shoval. He was a member of the Hashomer Hatzair movement and was a member of the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement in Yeruham. Yonatan enlisted in the IDF at the beginning of April 1994 to the “Shaldag” reconnaissance unit, but in August he moved to the reconnaissance unit of the Nahal Brigade. In March 1996, he completed a course for infantry officers. At the end of the course he returned to the reconnaissance company as a team commander. Yonatan fell in the Wadi Alman in Lebanon, on the western sector of the security zone in southern Lebanon, on the 22nd of Shvat (January 30, 1997) by a roadside bomb, while serving there as part of the fighting for the security of the northern settlements. He was laid to rest in the cemetery at Kibbutz Shoval and left his parents, brother and sister. He was promoted to lieutenant after his fall.