After Hamas Slaying of Their Son, Roey Weiser's Family Honors His Memory by Helping Soldiers, the Poor

EFRAT, Israel – Roey Weiser is an American-Israeli hero who lost his life at age 21 during the Hamas attack outside the Gaza Strip earlier this month. 

His quick actions helped save the lives of several of his fellow soldiers in the Golani Brigade. CBN News visited his parents, Yami and Naomi Weiser, as they mourned the loss of their son. In his memory, they're setting up a foundation to help soldiers and poor Israelis who are in need.

Yami and Naomi had ripped their clothes as is the Jewish custom to symbolize their pain during the week of mourning.

Yami told us, "My son was in the Golani Brigade. He was stationed at the Erez Crossing on Saturday of the seventh, the seventh of October, 6:30 in the morning, when the Hamas decided to come with all their forces into Israel and start fighting with us. Roey was in his base at the crossing."

"There were only like 20 soldiers in the base with him. He realized that there were many more Hamas combatants than soldiers in the base, and they were slowly picking them off. And my son went to the officer and he says, 'I have an idea. It's a little bit out there, but we need to we need to go around, you and I. We should take 3 other soldier.'"

"So it was the officer, my son was a sergeant, my my son's radio man and two other soldiers. They went out under fire around the building. They flanked the building, they went all the way around, they dropped on one of the roofs. So they went up onto one of the roofs, and they dropped onto the roofs. And together with the other team they they shot, and were able to hold off, to kill and hold off the Hamas combatants until either they shot them all, killed them all, or had them all run away. The rest of them ran away. And because of that, because of his ideas, his heroic thought at that moment and what he did, he was able to hold off Hamas, hold down the base, OK, for 2 hours until the reinforcements came to help them out. And 12 soldiers are alive to tell us the story today and, regretfully, in the crossfire, our son had died."

Naomi said, "Our son was a hero. And we have a 24-year-old daughter, and then Roey was 21, he's our oldest son, he's our oldest son, we have 2 sons, he's our oldest son, and we have another 17-year-old son. He was just your basic kid. He liked sports, he liked soccer. He liked baseball, he liked basketball. He was just a basic 21-year-old kid."

"Israel is a big country, yet a small country; everybody knows everybody.  Right. We were told when about Roey's funeral, people apologized, they couldn't come because they had two other funerals to go to. And like everybody has a brother, a relative, a son. Yeah, it's we're all one big, very sad, family."

When they heard the news, Roey's friends gathered to sing a tribute of the national anthem. CBN News saw the outpouring of pictures and messages attached to the wall around the Weiser's home.

"Our son sacrificed his life. Something should come of it," Naomi said. "Like this should end all wars. We should learn our lesson from this. We should, I want to see peace. I want to know that he didn't die in vain. I want to see this this evil organization that can come and murder children be demolished. I want I want the message to go across the world that anybody that supports them should stop supporting them. And we didn't start this war. Israel is now protecting itself against them."

"Israel should get the support of America and all over the world to help eradicate them, because otherwise, this is going to happen again, if not to us, to another country," she said.

"We were trying to think of the best way to memorialize him, and stories have been coming in from friends, from the army about..."

"How Roey helped them or Roey took care of of this for me and Roey helped with that. And he would call up Yami and ask him, can you buy me, you know, some shoelaces, but can you buy two other pairs I need for my two other friends whose parents can't buy them? Or he would take care of like kids that, he felt that these soldiers were his sons. So we've, it's an important thing that I think we're in the process of doing is starting a foundation for him to take care of the underprivileged because that's what, the underprivileged soldiers...they all should have good watches and good phones that they can call home every night."

"Another way we'd like to remember our son is through his generosity. Generosity. I think, is the word and thinking of others and and always with a smile is what they told us. Always made us laugh, always with a smile."