Staff Sgt. Alexander Masliy, 21: Combat engineer ‘loved this country’
Killed in a tank accident on October 8, 2023
Staff Sgt. Alexander Masliy, 21, a Combat Engineering Corps technician, from Afula, was killed on October 8, 2023, in a tank accident in southern Israel.
He was home on break when the attack began but he headed back to his base immediately even before being summoned.
The next day, he was part of a team transporting tanks down south to join the fighting when one of the tanks came free and overturned, killing Alex on the highway.
He was buried in Afula on October 10. He is survived by his parents, Tatiana and Peter, sister Irena and brother Artiom.
Born in Ukraine, he moved with his family to Israel in 2007, at age 5, settling in Afula. He attended schools in Migdal HaEmek and in Afula, focusing his studies on electrical engineering, according to a local paper.
His family members were active in the world of competitive boxing, with his father a coach and his brother an athlete competing for Israel, and the city of Afula dedicated a boxing gym bearing his name in his memory.
After finishing high school, Alex enlisted in the IDF in June 2021, serving in the Technology and Maintenance Corps.
A friend from school told the local paper that the pair shared a lot of dreams, including traveling together to Japan, “a dream for the two of us that will no longer come true.” The friend said Alex was “a regular at my house, he was like a brother to me.”
“In 9th grade, I had cancer and missed school and Alex was always there for me,” he recounted. “In the past year in the army, he told me how much he loved this country and the army and aspired to enroll in an officer’s course, and his commanders were also fighting for him to do so and giving him support.”
His cousin, Yulia, wrote on Facebook, “My dear cousin, may your soul rest in heaven. You always were and always will be our hero. We love you Alex.”
Alex’s girlfriend, Romi Gonen, wrote online about their relationship, how they met a little over a year earlier but were separated by their army service, though “we’d talk endlessly on the phone.”
“Entire days of conversations that we didn’t want to end,” she recounted. “We waited so much for those weekends when we were both home to finally spend time together and move our relationship forward.” Though they stumbled early on, they reconnected a month later “and we felt like we were on the top of the world. We both knew that this was it, that we were set.”
“Alex was the love of my life and I was the love of his life,” wrote Romi. “A pure person who everybody loved. A part of me. I felt safe and protected with him. He was everything I could wish for myself… you’ll be remembered as a hero.”
