Amsalem, Eliyahu
Son of Miriam and Yaakov, was born in 1928 in Tiberias, received a high school education and spent one year studying at the Hebrew Technion in Haifa. When he was young, he joined the ranks of the Hagana, aged 14. He completed a course for the commanders of the Gadna Brigade and received a training and guidance department for youth, and he headed a class that came to Beria and was one of the last to leave the point. Served as commander of the Gadna Company in the Jordan Valley and in the Lower Galilee. From the dawn of his youth he had absorbed a love of the homeland, a longing for freedom and a willingness to fight. Once, when a member of the Hagana was in danger of being imprisoned, he turned himself in to the British police to cover him up. With the outbreak of the War of Independence, he left the Technion and joined the Combatants for the Liberation of Haifa as commander of a section. He served in the Golani Brigade. On the night of April 22-23, 1948, a company force from the Golani Brigade came to conquer the town of Tzemach. One of the departments, Eliyahu’s, broke into the town and took control of part of it. At this stage they intervened with British forces in the police and army camp near the town, the connection between the departments was cut off and the department remained isolated in the town. Towards dawn, the platoon retreated in a battle with Arab forces that tried to surround it. In this battle he fell on the 12th of Adar 2 5708 (April 23, 1948). He was brought to rest in Tiberias. After his death, he was granted the rank of First Lieutenant (lieutenant). In his memory, a club called “Beit Eliyahu” was opened in Tiberias by his friends in Gadna.
