Michael Starr, 34-35, was born and raised in Toronto. Starr then moved to Victoria, British Columbia, and attended high school there. After completing high school, Starr immigrated to Israel, and later that year joined the military. He served in an infantry unit from 2009 to 2012 as a sniper and sharpshooter.
In a February 2023 interview with the Jewish Independent, Starr explained why he made this choice: “I grew up in a religious and Zionist household, and Israel was a large part of my cultural heritage […] My grandmother was born in Israel and my grandfather served in the Haganah and IDF. Further, there comes a time in every young man’s life in which he needs to leave his father’s home and put himself in a new environment to truly allow him to become himself.”
After finishing his service Starr went on to obtain a “bachelor’s degree, majoring in government studies, and a master’s in terrorism and counterterrorism operations from Reichman University in Herzliya.” He also volunteered with Reservists on Duty, according to his LinkedIn, where he said he: “Volunteered as part of a former IDF lone soldier speaking tour in the US Pacific North West and (later) Mid-Eastern Canada at college and university campuses, synagogues, high schools and community centers.”
Later on, he joined The Jerusalem Post as a journalist, and worked in several positions including the breaking news desk, police affairs correspondent and legal affairs correspondent. His profile on the site currently states that he is the Diaspora affairs correspondent at the paper, “covering global Jewish affairs, antisemitism, and radical anti-Israel activities.” It also describes him as “a veteran of the October 7 war.”
In December 2024, Starr published an article at the Jerusalem Post describing his time in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023. The article goes into great detail, and includes a segment where Starr describes killing someone, writing, “The young man I had killed couldn’t have been much older than 18. He was in civilian clothes. He was unarmed.”
Starr adds, “A teen lookout, possibly around 14 years old, darted over to the mouth of the main road at the boundary line. I fired at the ground nearby to scare him off. He fled back north. Another man appeared in the sandy depression. As he ran, I shot him in the leg, but I mistakenly believed I had missed. He stumbled as more gunfire rang – another marksman and I put two more rounds into his torso. I watched through my scope as he nestled into a dirt mound and ceased movement. A moment later, my partner opened fire on another man. The dust cleared, and we waited, and watched. The young man I had killed couldn’t have been much older than 18. He was in civilian clothes. He was unarmed. My heart sank when inspection of a bag dropped by one of the men revealed foodstuffs inside. Was he actually Hamas? What if he was just a civilian desperate for the food we had abandoned in our old complex? Did we really have enough intelligence to use deadly force?”
Later he writes, “Despite the smiles, I was still scarred by the momentary fear that I had killed a civilian. For Hamas, which was willing to send young men to their deaths as cannon fodder, which was willing to have all of Gaza razed in its war against Israel rather than surrender, life was cheap. It was just to kill Hamas terrorists, who sought to kill Israelis and refused to release Israelis hostages, and who would make any peace with the Palestinians impossible. Yet life was not cheap to me. Even if Hamas and its ilk did not value life, the life of men like the one I killed still had innate value. Like Gaza, their lives were full of potential – he could have had a family, loved, studied, a career. Instead, he died among the ruins of a place that could have been teeming with orchards, hotels, and tourists as a jewel of the Mediterranean.”
Starr’s interview with the Jewish Independent names his parents as Steven Starr and Iris Green-Starr, both doctors. It also notes that he had two brothers at the time of the interview that were or had been in the Israeli military: “His brother, Joseph, came in 2012 and served in the Israeli army; today, he is in the Canadian military. Starr’s younger brother, Sam, is currently part of the IDF’s Golani Brigade.” Both Joseph Starr and Sam Starr are included in this database.
