In a story that compounds tragedy with tragedy, the grieving mother of fallen soldier St.-Sgt. Oriya Ayimalk Goshen of the Givati Brigade revealed the circumstances of her son’s death.

Yafit Goshen said that her son was killed during Operation Red Heart, while participating in a mission to save the members of the Bibas family who had been taken hostage on Oct. 7: the mother, Shiri; the four-year-old, Ariel; and the nine-month-old baby, Kfir.

The mission was doomed to fail before it ever started. Unbeknownst to the IDF, the captors of the mother and two children had already brutally murdered them — forensic evidence later showed they were murdered at their captors’ bare hands.

Another Givati soldier, St.-Sgt. Ori Gerbi, was also killed in the operation.

Speaking at the Yad LaBanim Remembrance Day ceremony on Monday, Goshen called for national unity and urged Israeli society to honor the sacrifices of its soldiers and prove themselves worthy of such sacrifice.

“When Oriya took part in Operation Red Heart to rescue hostages, he not only defended the state’s borders, he closed a historic circle,” she said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also attended the ceremony, said that the grief from losing a loved one doesn’t shrink with time, and he tied that pain to the ongoing conflict, saying that Israel was still engaged in a multi-front war. He identified Iran as Israel’s central threat and vowed that the IDF would continue to strike against anyone who threatened the security of its citizens.

The Bibas family became one of the symbols of the Israeli hostage rescue effort — and now we know the full extent of the failure to save them.