Master Sgt. Lior Arzi, 25: Volunteer EMT with a ‘gentle heart’

Master Sgt. Lior Arzi, 25, a combat medic in Shaldag, was killed in battle in the northern Gaza Strip on November 3.

A third-generation kibbutznik from Givat Haim-Ihud, Arzi recently moved to Jerusalem with his girlfriend to study medicine. He would have begun his studies this March.

Arzi completed a service year volunteering for Hatzor HaGlilit before enlisting in the army. In 2019, he began his military paramedic training, working volunteer shifts with Magen David Adom.

He continued his volunteer work even after becoming qualified as a paramedic and was on his way to becoming a team leader in a mobile intensive care unit before he was killed in combat.

Former Labor Knesset member Ram Shefa, a resident of Givat Haim-Ihud, paid tribute to Arzi on Twitter, noting that he had said goodbye to him just a few weeks ago on the kibbutz.

“The hearts of us all on the kibbutz are broken into pieces,” he wrote. “It’s hard to describe in words what a sweet boy you were, I will never forget your shy, special smile.”

Yuval Arzi, a cousin of Lior’s, eulogized him in a Facebook post earlier this week: “He had such a good heart. He had a rare ability to be in touch with and true to himself. He knew who he was, and knew the moral compass ​​that guided him, and nothing could sway him from that. A rare combination of inner silence, delicacy and power, which impressed me so much.”

“Lior was always smiling, with a good heart and well-loved. He was the first to volunteer and help at any opportunity, and all the teams in the unit where he served wanted him to be with them,” said his colleague Tamara Youdelevitch Shalit, who worked with him at Magen David Adom’s Netanya station. “May his memory be a blessing.”