Lior Tkach, 26: CompSci student with a ‘passion and love for life’

Lior Tkach, 26, from Beersheba, was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023.

Lior attended the party with his friends, including Yevgeni Postel, who was murdered with him as they tried to escape, as well as Noa Argamani, who was taken hostage and rescued by the IDF eight months later.

Lior was buried in Beersheba on October 10. He is survived by his parents, Galina and Eduard, and his older sister, Orly.

His friends and family described him as a smart and curious person who stood out because of his intellectuality and creativity. They also said he loved sports, music, dancing, food, nature, the beach, his friends and books, according to a state eulogy. He also loved chess, and his loved ones hosted a chess tournament in his memory.

After finishing high school, Lior enlisted in the IDF and served in combat support in the Israeli Air Force. Following his release, he traveled abroad before returning and starting a bachelor’s degree in software and information systems engineering at Ben Gurion University, before continuing on to a master’s degree in the same subject.

Dar, Lior’s girlfriend, said he was the most special person she had ever met, and that she knew the day they met that she had met her soulmate.

“From the first moment, I realized that he was the smartest, most good-looking, and most intelligent person who could also make me laugh until my stomach hurt. Lior was the most ambitious person I’d ever met, who inspired me and so many other people. I would always look at him and be inspired by how he excelled at everything he touched,” she said.

She added that Lior supported her, made her laugh, and was her shoulder to cry on when she needed it.

“Lior taught me how not to give up when things were hard, how to look at the cup as half full, and how not to be disappointed by what you didn’t have. He was my whole world, my support, and he always pushed me to succeed and believed in me like I’d never believed in myself,” she said.

Lior’s friend from university, Denis, wrote that they had been partners in most of their academic projects and that Lior had helped him succeed.

“More than that, you were my partner in life. Thank you for knowing how to make us laugh during the hardest times. Thank you for infecting me with your passion and love for life, your courage to take advantage of every opportunity and live life every day like it was your last,” he wrote.

Another friend, Eden, wrote on Facebook that Lior was “a wonderful and hilarious person and a real friend who knew how to turn anything complicated into something simple.”

“He touched so many people in his life, especially during his degree. Every conversation with him pulled you in, every party with him was incredible, and every project with him was 100% guaranteed,” she wrote.

Ron, another friend of Lior’s, wrote that “not a day goes by that I don’t think of you smiling from ear to ear because that was your way and that’s how I want to remember you — happy.”

“You taught people how to smile, laugh, share, and experience, and there were a million other traits to you,” he wrote.

After being rescued in July, Argamani posted on social media, memorializing Lior and Yevgeni.

“How can I go back to a reality that I know you won’t be part of? You were a massive part of my life, each of you in his own way. How did that party we went to together become a terrible tragedy?” she wrote.

She added that she would always remember them as the happy people they were “with a huge smile and a big heart.”

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