When Sgt. 1st Class Eyal Zimmerman was killed on April 9, 2002, in a terrible battle in the Jenin refugee camp, Facebook still didn't exist. Anyone who searches for his name on social media now finds a page in his memory, put up by friends of his. It features pictures they scanned and uploaded, a few video clips, and announcements about memorial services from the past 15 years. The pictures, random moments that were frozen in time, offer nonverbal, incomplete information, but leave a deep impression of Eyal's penetrating gaze from behind his round John Lennon-style glasses. "I don't remember him without glasses," his friend Kobi Ellenbogen says. Eyal's gaze is one of assessment, sometimes doubtful, sometimes hesitant, but almost always smiling. In nearly every picture, he is surrounded by friends: On a trip to South America, during his army service, in the school courtyard. "His area of expertise was the many friends he gathered. He had a great love for people," one of his friends is quoted saying on the page devoted to Eyal on Israel's official website for the commemoration of the country's fallen soldiers. "He had a lot of friends. He really loved them and they keep coming to his memorial services, even 15 years on," Eyal's father, David Zimmerman, told Israel Hayom. Eyal, whose mother died of cancer when he was 18, left behind his father and older sister, Zohar, as well as a large, close-knit group of friends from the neighborhood, from school, from the youth movement, and from the army, all of whom refuse to forget him and hold on to his memory years after his death. It's hard to ignore Eyal's hair, which changes depending on what stage of life he was at when a given picture was taken. In high school, it was down to his shoulders, and his close army crop made his intelligent features stand out. After the army, he grew his hair long again, and this time dyed it a loud red, as if to say, "I'm here! Talk to me!" Eyal was a studious young man whose thinking was quick and flexible, who rose up when he identified social ills and pondered pacifism. He was very political, and was always quick to debate. One picture shows Eyal and an army pal playing backgammon, smiling for the camera. The friend's hand is still moving some pieces, but it's certain he lost the game. He had no chance against Eyal. "He always said backgammon wasn't just a game of luck, it was a game of strategy, it was the statistics of risk management," says Eyal's high school girlfriend, Keren Tamir. Kobi adds: "He was a champion player. We'd have big tournaments of 30 or 40 players, and he won twice in a row." Backgammon, it appears, was just an excuse for lively conversation. "He was very opinionated. He would drag the class into arguments," says Tami Yakobovich, Eyal's homeroom teacher from Ostrovsky High School in Raanana. "Eyal and Kobi would conduct the lessons between themselves. Eyal was an unusually conversational person, wiser and more mature than his years, and he'd argue about Plato, about Machiavelli. He was a captivating kid, very special, who pursued peace, justice and truth," Tami says. On the morning of March 29, 2002, not even two days after the worst suicide attack in Israel's history, the horrific suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya, which came near the end of a month rife with terrorist attacks that killed 105 Israeli civilians and 26 soldiers, the government of Israel decided to launch Operation Defensive Shield. The purpose of the operation was to attack the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure in Judea and Samaria -- to go into every city, every village and chase down the terrorists. The operation made use of unprecedented manpower: Five IDF divisions and some 20,000 reservists who were mobilized by an emergency call-up. Eyal had completed his compulsory service and was released from the army in November 2000. He managed to travel in South America and live in New York for a while, where he worked as a mover, before returning to Israel and starting to work toward a degree in psychology from the Open University. Defensive Shield was his first stint of reserve duty, and it was in full swing when Eyal and the fellow members of his battalion reported for duty. They were sent to a short training session before they would be deployed. IDF forces had already entered Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Nablus. The 5th division, to which Eyal's battalion was attached, was assigned to Jenin. Terrorist operatives from various groups were organized and bunkered down in the refugee camp, which was small, to the west of the city, very crowded and home to some 13,000 residents. Terrorist forces there had conceived and carried out many attacks in the Sharon region and farther north near Hadera, and were not allowing Palestinian Authority security forces to gain entry. Gangs of terrorists had taken over the camp. The days that passed before IDF forces entered the camp worked to their detriment. The armed Palestinians had time to batten themselves down and prepare for the arrival of the military. In the meantime, armed fighters from elsewhere gathered in Jenin to join the battle. "They felt they were well-prepared for the battle with the IDF," says Yoram Lavie, who was the lieutenant colonel in command of the Nahshon reserves battalion during the operation. "The battalion's first mission was to surround the entire camp to prevent the enemy from escaping and keep backup from outside the camp from getting in. The day after we surrounded [the camp], we reduced our forces around the perimeter and entered the camp from the north-east. Our mission was to head toward the center of the camp: to capture more houses and more territory. There were other forces fighting alongside us ... and even armored companies that were securing us and providing us with close cover," Lavie says. "This is how we operated until Monday evening. At that time, there was a very small area at the center of the camp, completely surrounded, not more than 150 square meters [1,600 square feet], where a tough group of terrorists was holed up, planning to fight until the end." A deadly volley of fire For a few days, the forces battled methodically, trying to minimize harm to the civilian population that was not taking part in the fighting, which led to high IDF casualties. But on Monday evening the picture changed. Lavie says: "We received orders to advance more quickly, possibly because of political and diplomatic considerations. The American secretary of state had arrived in Israel, and we needed to speed up the fighting. The company in which Eyal was fighting was ordered to barricade itself in a few houses and allow other forces to enter the camp from the north. The main forces were led forward by company commander, the late Maj. Oded Golomb, with the signaler, 1st Sgt. Tiran Arazi, and Eyal, who was the signaler for the commander, as well as a platoon commanded by the late Lt. Dror Bar. They were moving fast. In the early hours of the morning, they reached their destination, but then the company commander decided to capture another nearby house. Some terrorists were barricaded inside. It later turned out that it was the home of the commander of the terrorists in the camp. The terrorists spotted the forces while they were still preparing to force their way in, and opened with a lethal volley of fire from the second story toward the alley. "This is where the battle to rescue [them] started. Eyal wasn't hit by the first volley of fire. He took cover behind a wall, and stayed there to alert [our] forces by radio. The entire time, we heard him reporting that they were under fire and there were wounded, that he was next to a wounded soldier, Reuven Magnagey. Eyal stayed by him, never left him, and waited for rescue. The rescue forces that finally got there mistakenly thought that the terrorists, who had stopped shooting, had left. While they were collecting the wounded, the terrorists who had remained let off another round of fire, no less deadly than the first. I'm talking about a range of no more than 15 meters [50 feet]. Eyal was hit, too." Wounded, holding a grenade Magnagey -- today a rower on Israel's paralympic team -- who was lying wounded alongside Eyal in the inferno, recreates the moments of the battle. "I didn't know Eyal, it was his first time on reserve duty, and relationships are built over the years. We were both thrown into the same hell. Early that morning, we left for the refugee camp. They didn't welcome us with flowers. The streets were booby-trapped. A lot of people were armed, and we were walking on eggshells from house to house. We got orders to clean out another house. "Oded Golomb was at the head of the forces, along with his signaler, Eyal. I remember that the house was too exposed and a decision was made to move on to another house. Oded tried to bust through a big metal door, but we had picked out a place where there were terrorists. A lot of guys were hit in the first volley. During the first lull, the medic, Shneor, went around to the wounded and put a tourniquet on my leg. He and Eyal helped carry me to cover. That entire time, I know that Eyal was behind me, watching over me, saying, 'Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere,' at the same time he was calling for help on the radio. "And then the rescue forces arrived. Eyal called me and I dragged myself half a meter [a couple of feet]. A big guy came up to me and tried to lift me onto his back, but in a second he was hit and killed. I went back to cover on auto-pilot and waited. I didn't have my weapon anymore. Suddenly there was a terrible quiet. The voices on the radio disappeared. I looked back and realized that Eyal had been killed," Magnagey says. Magnagey continues his story, explaining that the terrorists ventured into the alley to confirm kills. He found a grenade and pulled out the pin in case the terrorists found him, but they never noticed him. Magnagey tried to put the pin back in. Finally, when he had no strength left, he was rescued. "Eyal was there and did his job in an outstanding manner until the very last second. Later on, I realized that this man-boy, with the long hair and the glasses, was a pacifist, but he understood what a momentous time it was, and found himself there in the fire," Magnagey says. A total of 23 IDF soldiers were killed in the battles in Jenin, 13 in the one that took the life of Eyal Zimmerman. Twenty-three tragedies, 23 bereaved families. "Fifteen years is a long time, but for people like me, the clock is stopped," David Zimmerman says. "For me, he [Eyal] has stayed 22, and that's it. His story is finished, and so is mine. My life isn't the same. I have no desire for anything, but I'm surviving. It's clear to me that if my son had been killed in a car accident, I would feel even worse, but that's no comfort. After the death of his mother, he could have served close to home, but he wanted combat service. After the army he went abroad to travel, then came back, started studying at the Open University, and was killed in his second semester. "The moment I was notified of his death doesn't leave me. I was at work. They called me into the office of the deputy CEO. I saw the officers and realized that there'd been a disaster. It was in the afternoon. I was in total shock. I didn't want to understand what had happened, they didn't explain it at all. They buried him that same night. I demanded a secular funeral service because I'm secular and my son was secular and we didn't want a religious funeral. ... A bereaved parent is allowed to write a eulogy on the headstone. I wrote: 'Thus passes the glory of the world.' "I didn't have too many deep talks with Eyal. When you live with someone, you aren't worried he's going to die. When he enlisted, I was very worried. One time, I drove to the Gaza Strip to visit him because I missed him so much. When he got out of the army, I was relieved, but four months after he got back from his trip abroad, he was killed. His room is the same. Even his army bag is still on the bed. I can't bring myself to touch it. If someone tells me that time heals, he talking nonsense. Time doesn't heal. I live 800 meters [half a mile] from the cemetery -- it's become my second home. It's not healthy, I know. All his friends went to college, traveled, got married, started careers, had kids, and you're left with a 22-year-old kid in the grave. Stuck in the past," David says. Once a year, Ostrovsky High School holds a backgammon tournament in Eyal's memory. The 11th graders gather in the gym and compete in Eyal's favorite game, talking and arguing all the while, just like Eyal liked to do. His many friends also miss the tournament, as does his father, who makes a speech and distributes prizes to the winners. But life moves on. Since 2002, Ostrovsky High School has seen a generation of students who laugh during breaks and argue in class. The fallen remain behind, frozen pictures, but the living memory burns. As the backgammon dice are thrown -- "the statistics of risk management," as Eyal called it -- his image arises, with its wise expression, the long conversations, and the incurable sense of loss returns.