Mementos of fallen IDF soldier stolen from family for second time

About four years after burglars stole a phone containing photos and messages of the fallen soldier, a hard drive containing photos and correspondence was stolen from brother's house.

Staff Sergeant Bnaya Rubel (photo credit: IDF)
Staff Sergeant Bnaya Rubel
(photo credit: IDF)
A hard drive containing photos and written correspondence between Bnaya Rubel, a soldier who fell during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, and his family, was stolen on Saturday night from his brother's house.
A number of unknown individuals who broke into the brother's house stole the drive on which the last memories of Rubel were kept.
The incident occurred about four years after a similar incident occurred to the family, when the phone of Rubel's father, Zev, which contained photos and messages sent to him by Bnaya, was stolen from his personal bag from inside his vehicle. However, a few days after the previous break-in, the phone was returned.
St.-Sgt. Bnaya Rubel was killed in an encounter with terrorists in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014. He is survived by his parents and two brothers – Liel and Yarin, and a half-brother – Tomer Arik.
Yarin told Walla! that the thieves "broke in while we were sleeping. I woke up in the morning and saw that things that had been in the house were scattered in the yard."
Among the items taken, which included laptops and cash, was also the hard drive that "contained all the material: material from Bnaya's cell phone, events throughout the last seven years, all sorts of materials his friends gave us. Correspondence. Everything. I backed it up on the drive and I don't have this material anymore."
The feeling that they entered our personal area is unnerving," said Yarin. "The distress is only exacerbated by the fact that it was done while we were at home, sleeping. They took laptops, mine and my wife's, took money, took my old cell phone, wireless headphones as well as her son's memories."
Rubel described that the serious act makes him feel that the physical memory of his brother has also been taken away from him. "It brings me back to the feelings of loss I once experienced. What other memory remains besides pictures of Bnaya? [These are] feelings that are not easy."
Yarin called on the thieves to leave the drive they took near the family home so that citizens can locate it and return it to the bereaved family. "I ask that the person who took it leave it because it has no monetary value, but it has sentimental value," he stressed.
In a Facebook post published today by Maayan, Yarin's wife, which received thousands of shares, she called for assistance in locating the drive.

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