Sgt. Maj. Malik Karim, 32: Police officer slain protecting partygoers
Killed battling the Hamas attack on the Supernova music festival on October 7
Sgt. Maj. Malik Karim, 32, an investigator with the Israel Police at the Beersheba station, from Dimona, was killed on October 7 battling the Hamas attack on the Supernova music festival.
Malik was working as part of the police security detail at the site of the rave that morning. When the rocket fire began, he attempted to help people safely leave the site of the festival, even though his shift had been slated to end at 6:30 a.m.
When he and other police officers realized that Hamas gunmen were attacking people along the highway, they set up a roadblock to attempt to slow them down and allow partygoers to flee. Malik and many other officers fought back against the terrorists and were ultimately slain in the battle.
He was buried in Dimona on October 10. He is survived by his wife, Yana, their two children, Daniel and Anabel, and his mother, Mina. His father, Malik, died before he was born.
Born in Derbent, Russia, Malik moved to Israel with his mother in 1994, at age 3. They settled in Dimona where he attended local schools.
He served in the Border Police and later in the Prisons Service during his mandatory IDF service, and in February 2013 he enlisted in the Israel Police, serving in the southern district.
His friend and colleague Enas Abu Wasel wrote on Facebook that she was “still waiting every day for you to come up the stairs and shout, ‘Hello commander, I’ve arrived.'”
“I’m waiting for our conversations, for your smile, your pure heart — you knew only how to love and to help,” she added. “How can I imagine the days without you coming and making me happy?”
Yana wrote on Facebook that she and Malik met when she was 19 and he was 21, introduced after her mother had met his mother during a visit to Israel: “I can’t put into words what we felt when we first met.”
“Two months later Malik proposed to me and I said ‘yes.’ I couldn’t imagine my life without him,” she said. “So I moved to Israel and started learning Hebrew. Malik joined the police force since he had always dreamt of being a policeman. Everything was so wonderful. We lived well and took care of our two kids, Daniel and Anabel.”
“On October 6, he put on his uniform, kissed the family goodbye and left for work,” Yana recounted. When she called him amid the attack, she “heard a distressed and shaking voice. He said he couldn’t talk… I could only imagine what Malik had to go through.”
Malik, she said, was “an amazing man, who we learned later on, helped save civilians but couldn’t save himself. Every night, I have the same dream. Malik comes home and says: ‘I’m alive Yana, everything is alright.'”
