First Sergeant Almog Shiloni hy”d, who was murdered Monday by a terrorist in Tel Aviv, had always wanted to be a combat soldier.

In an interview for the IAF website upon his induction to the military, Shiloni said: “I always wanted to be a fighter. I trained ahead of the enlistment, and ran for fitness. I prepared for it a lot.”

Shiloni is a graduate of the first Platoon Commanders’ Course of the Nahal Hareidi battalion and served in the Negev Defenders’ section.

Almog’s twin brother, Sahar, said Monday that his brother “only wanted to return to his base and was simply stabbed and wounded. This simply cannot go on. There are soldiers and peoiple who are injured, who are stabbed in the street, you can’t walk alone in this country, you can’t walk quietly. This is our country, we fought for it, my twin brother fought for it.”

Rabbi Dov Lifshitz, of the Nahal Haredi Rabbis NGO, who accompanied Almog during his military service, said that Almog “was a true fearer of G-d. He did what he could to make the soldiers around him more knowledgeable in Torah and more G-d fearing. He was a commander whose subordinates admired. My heart breaks over his murder by an evil person.”

Shiloni was stabbed several times by an 18-year-old terrorist from Shechem. He received treatment on the spot from Magen David Adom and Ichud Hatzala, and was taken to Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer. Doctors fought for his life for several hours but in the end, had to pronounce his death.

The terrorist, Nur a-Din Abu-Hashiya, from Ascar in Shechem, struggled with civilains and police at the scene of the murder and escaped into a residential building in nearby Levanda Street. Policemen caught up to him at the fourth floor of the building. He is now being interrogated.