Sgt. Lior Azizov, 20: Talented artist ‘managed to do so much in life’
Killed battling Hamas at the Paga IDF outpost on October 7
Sgt. Lior Azizov, 20, a Golani Brigade soldier, from Ashkelon, was killed battling the Hamas invasion of southern Israel on October 7.
Lior was stationed on the Paga IDF outpost that morning, and was on shift until 4 a.m. But when the invasion began, he grabbed his gun and went to help fight off the terrorists. He was helping to treat injured comrades inside an on-base bomb shelter when he was himself wounded.
After patching himself up, Lior went back out to fight and was killed in battle after nine hours of fighting to defend the base. Overall 14 IDF soldiers were killed in Paga that day.
A week before the Hamas attack, Lior’s commanders had decided to allow him to attend a sniper’s course, which he wanted to do, and then have him train as a commander.
He was buried in Ashkelon on October 11. He is survived by his mother, Natalia, stepfather, Sergei, older sister Camilla and younger brother Lionel.
His mother, Natalia, told the Kan public broadcaster that Lior’s father, Timor, died in 2010 from complications after being injured in the Tel Aviv Stage Club terror attack in 2005, and that Lior had become the man of the house.
“He would come to me in the morning and bring me a cup of coffee and tell me to get up and not be late for work. And when I cried at night, he was next to me and told me not to cry and said that everything was from God,” she said.
Lior’s grandmother was killed in 1992 fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh War. His parents moved to Israel in 2000 and settled in Ashkelon, where he was born.
His grandmother, Valentina, said Lior “was simply a hero, a beloved hero.”
At a memorial ceremony 30 days after he was killed, Natalia said that Lior “contributed a lot of [himself] for the community, friends, family and our people.”
“You paid the dearest price in our world — you paid with your life. You managed to do so much in your life, and there was so much you didn’t manage to do,” she said.
Lior was a talented artist and, shortly before the war, he drew a picture of an army of faceless soldiers carrying iron swords with a tree in the background.
When President Isaac Herzog heard about the drawing, he decided to feature it on the president’s website. The caption accompanying the drawing described Lior as “a sensitive young man, and a talented artist who loved the sea.”
It said he loved to fish and dreamed of sailing a yacht.
