Lieutenant Uri Mordechai Shani, a platoon commander in the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade, dispatched part of his platoon when the war broke out to engage in the fight at Kibbutz Kissufim, while he remained with six soldiers at the Kissufim junction. He deployed his soldiers against Hamas terrorists and they fought relentlessly until they were surrounded, running out of ammunition and nearly without water. After they killed numerous terrorists, he guided his soldiers from the intersection into the Kisufim base, intending to replenish ammunition and resume the fight, when he was fatally struck by shrapnel from a mortar shell. Posthumously, he was promoted from the rank of lieutenant to the rank of captain.
