A memorial service was held at the military cemetery in Ashdod this morning on the 30th anniversary of the death of Staff Sergeant Eli Gamzu, a soldier in the Paratroopers Brigade. Eli was killed on the morning of October 7 near Moshav Netiv Ha'Asara in an encounter with terrorists, two weeks before his 21st birthday. He was a squad commander in a paratroopers hospital, and went to the northern envelope with the first forces that were sent to the battlefield that Black Saturday.
"I'm going to fulfill what I swore to two years and two months ago... " he told his mother minutes before they said goodbye for the last time. His friend Maayan, who fought shoulder to shoulder with him, said: "We were three fighters. We were covering three civilians. We fought against six terrorists who fired and threw grenades."
Eli and another fighter were killed in the exchange of fire. "I was left alone, I shut up so they would think I was dead. At one point, a terrorist approached me, I fired two bullets at him and fought a battle with another terrorist until a reinforcement team arrived."
Photo: Liron Moldovan,
Outside the cemetery, his family and friends waited for life and the unit, dressed in white shirts with the inscription: "Smile because smiling is joy and joy is the strength to keep going." A few meters away, when they reached Eli's grave, his mother, Eliza, broke down, prostrated herself on the grave, hugged him tightly and sobbed, "My Eli," she whispered tearfully, "You took my heart."
Liam Aharon, his 16-year-old brother, said: "He was giving and values, sociable, sensitive, my best friend. Eli always wanted to serve in the Golani. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of his uncle and cousin, but in the end he enlisted in the paratroopers and loved serving there."
Eli's friends said that he used to help lone soldiers and buy groceries for them at Shekem: "He would always smile even in the most difficult situations and also start singing."
Ram Hayoun, one of three civilians whom Eli and his friends protected while they were running that morning and were caught in an inferno near Netiv Ha'ahara, said: "We were on a morning run. We left immediately Mordechai. When terrorists started running around, we hid. Eli's force arrived around 12. We already thought it was all over in a few minutes, but then another squad arrived and a battle began. Two friends who were with me were murdered."
Eli was born in Ashdod. Before he ran into the ropes, he still managed to send pictures of himself in uniform to his girlfriend. At around 14:30 P.M. on October 7, his father, Shmuel, sent him a message, but the next morning he and his family were notified of his death. At his death he left behind his parents: Shmuel and Ilse and two brothers, Liel and Liam.
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