Uri Ilan was an Israeli soldier

Israel Defense Forces

The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...

 who committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 in a Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

n prison, after being captured in a covert operation on the Golan Heights. He became a symbol of courage and patriotism in Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

.

Early life

Ilan was born in 1935 in kibbutz

Kibbutz

A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...

 Gan Shmuel. His mother was Fayge Ilanit

Fayge Ilanit

Fayge Ilanit – 14 July 2002) was a Zionist activist and Israeli politician. She was a granddaughter of Rabbi Shimon Shkop and mother of IDF soldier Uri Ilan.-Biography:...

, a member of the First Knesset

Israeli legislative election, 1949

Elections for the Constituent Assembly were held in newly independent Israel on 25 January 1949. Voter turnout was 86.9%. Two days after its first meeting on 14 February 1949, legislators voted to change the name of the body to the Knesset...

. He joined the Golani infantry division

Golani Brigade

The Golani Brigade is an Israeli infantry brigade that is subordinated to the 36th Division and traditionally associated with the Northern Command. Its symbol is a green tree on a yellow background, and its soldiers wear a brown beret. It is one of the most highly decorated infantry units in the...

 in 1953.

Capture and suicide

According to the Israel Defence Forces, he was captured by the Syrians on December 8, 1954 near a Syrian post in the Golan Heights along with four soldiers in his team. The soldiers were taken into custody in Quneitra

Quneitra

Quneitra is the largely destroyed and abandoned capital of the Quneitra Governorate in south-western Syria. It is situated in a high valley in the Golan Heights at an elevation of 1,010 metres above sea level...

 and sent to a Damascus

Damascus

Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...

 prison for interrogation.

In the Syrian prison, they were sent to separate cells and brutally torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

d. Believing his comrades to have been killed, as falsely claimed by his captors in an attempt to weaken morale, Ilan hanged himself in his prison cell, using a rope made from the fabric of the mattress cover. In his clothing, Ilan hid nine notes addressed to his homeland, Israel, and his family. The most famous is a scrap of paper on which he wrote the Hebrew words "לא בגדתי" which means: "I did not betray".

Return to Israel

On 29 March 1956 the four Israeli soldiers who were captured along with Uri Ilan were returned to Israel in exchange for 40 Syrian soldiers. Uri Ilan's body was later returned to Israel.

Ilan's suicide and the notes he left behind set off a great outpouring of grief in Israel, but also a sense of national pride. His life story became a symbol of heroism and self-sacrifice in Israel's ongoing struggle for survival.