A Boring Dystopia

“You were the happiest and biggest goofball in the platoon. We realized this for the first time when you set a house on fire without approval in order to boost morale,” said one of his fellow soldiers in a subsequent eulogy at the funeral.

Ben-Natan’s father David referenced his son’s arrest last year for shooting dead a 40-year-old Palestinian man in front of his wife and children while they were harvesting olives in the West Bank.

“You entered Gaza (after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught) to take revenge — as much as possible. [Against] women, children — everyone you saw. As much as possible. That’s what you wanted,” said Uriah Ben-Natan, the brother of 22-year-old Sgt. First Class (res.) Shuvael Ben-Natan, from the northern West Bank settlement of Rehelim.