Gabriel Michi 
69 days of despair went by. Of anguish, but also hope. Hope that was shattered in the last hours after learning the worst news. Ron Sherman, a young Israeli-Argentine just 19 years old, was found dead in Gaza. He was the nephew of musician León Gieco, and he was doing his Mandatory Military Service when he was kidnapped by Hamas on that sinister October 7 when the terrorist attacks on Israel left 1,200 dead. After he was kidnapped, he was taken to the Gaza Strip.
That day, he only exchanged a few messages on WhatsApp with his family, which abruptly ended with: “I love you; that’s it; they’re here. It’s over. It’s the end for me.”
Despite those farewell words, a video surfaced showing the young soldier being taken away — with a terrified face along with two companions — gave his family hope of finding him alive. But unfortunately, that did not happen. 69 days after his kidnapping, his parents received the worst news: the Israel Defense Forces found his body in Gaza. They have not said whether he was murdered by Hamas or if he died in the Israeli bombings that local authorities say have already caused close to 18,000 deaths and 50,000 injuries.
The IDF officially reported the following: “The bodies of hostages CPL Nik Beizer, 19, and SGT Ron Sherman, 19, who were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, were recovered from Gaza during operational activity and returned to Israeli territory. The IDF sends its deepest condolences to the families and will continue to support them. Our national mission is to locate the missing and return all hostages home.”
According to reports, Ron’s body was found near the bodies of Nick Beiser, a driver at a police station, and 28-year-old Elia Toledano, a producer at the Nova Festival, the electronic party in Reims that became the deadliest site of that massacre, where Hamas murdered 300 people. The three bodies were recovered by soldiers from Brigade 551 and Intelligence Unit 504 and later identified by the Israel Institute of Medicine.
The headquarters of the Hostage and Missing Families Forum — which gathered loved ones of the 240 people kidnapped on October 7 — lamented Ron Sherman’s murder.
“We share the deep pain of the Sherman family. Sergeant Ron Sherman, age 19, was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from his bed at a military base and taken to the Gaza Strip. Ron’s role in the IDF included coordinating with Gaza businessmen to help them export goods, thus supporting Gaza’s economy. Ron suffered from severe asthma, and Hamas filmed him, alive, when he was being kidnapped in Gaza.”
Ron’s father, Alex Sherman, is a veterinarian. He settled in Israel in 1975. Ron was his eldest child, and he has two more, a 17-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl. Alex’s aunt is married to famous Argentine musician León Gieco, who recorded a moving video pleading for Ron and the rest of the kidnapped people.
“I have a very intimate WhatsApp connection with León. I’ve known him since I was very young. So I love him very much as a person. And he teaches me to play the guitar, and he plays me music. It’s something very intimate, very family-oriented,” Alex said
A few days after the kidnapping, Alex gave an interview to Argentine network C5N, where he described his son’s role in the IDF.
“My son is a 19-year-old soldier doing Mandatory Military Service. He is not a combat soldier. And he has an illness, asthma. They put him to work with the Arabs at the entrance to Gaza because he gave them the permits to do business regarding the goods to come in. He is the one who spoke with the merchants, with the truckers, and he gave the permits. In other words, he had daily contact with the local people. He helped them maintain a normal life, for their economy to develop”, he said
“He was part of all that, so that people are well. He was not a combatant. He was not fighting, on the contrary. That is so that people know who my son is.”
