Israeli war cabinet minister Gadi Eizenkot learnt of the death of his son in Gaza combat while conferring about operational plans at military headquarters outside the Palestinian enclave, his partner in government has recalled at the funeral.

According to AFP, the experience, fellow centrist minister Benny Gantz said in a televised eulogy, brought home for them both the career-long knowledge that “arrows on the map can become arrows in the hearts of beloved families”.

“As that door — a door that became a curse — opened, it was similar to so many doors that you have opened in the past,” Gantz said in remarks addressed to Eizenkot.

Both are former infantrymen who rose to command all of Israel’s military.

“I looked at you. When you went out, I thought: ‘No one deserves this. Gal doesn’t deserve this. Only those who love the homeland, who are raised to defend it and stand at the vanguard, are liable to fall in battle while protecting its future,” Gantz said.

“Gal, I am certain that we will press the offensive, the effort to bolster the country which you so loved — in order that it will mainly be strong, cultivated and righteous,” Eizenkot, his voice choked with tears, said over his son’s coffin.