Ben Hanna and Yehuda. He was born on 19.9.1903 in Russia, in the city of Omsk, Siberia. After completing high school, he moved to Tomsk and began medical studies, a profession that was common among his family. David spent two years studying medicine until he was expelled from the university because of his membership in the Zionist movement. He went to Leningrad and, since he was also talented in painting and sculpture, was admitted to the Faculty of Architecture. For three years he studied architecture, and all the while he continued Zionist activity in the underground. He was a member of Maccabi and a sports and physical training instructor. When the Maccabi movement in Russia was outlawed and most of its leaders were arrested, David continued his underground activities as one of its leaders. He was also an amateur sculptor. In the central square of Omsk in Siberia stood a statue of his own making. On one of his travels, he met his future wife, Tzipora, and together they decided to flee from Russia. In 1927 he made his first escape attempt to cross the river to China. Tzipora and David were apprehended, sentenced and sentenced to two months’ hard labor. After serving their sentences, they again stole the border and this time managed to reach the city of Harbin in northern China. Instead, David and his wife spent about a year working in the building. Friends from Israel sent them an immigration permit and by the end of 1928 they had immigrated to Israel. David began his career as a laborer in Binyamina and after a while he was accepted to the Technion for further studies in architecture. At the end of his studies, he opened a private office in Haifa and worked on planning buildings in Haifa and the Krayot. David was a member of the Haganah and in 1940, after the outbreak of World War II, he enlisted in the British Army with the first volunteers from Eretz Israel. Since he was older than enlistment, he changed the year of his birth and thus enabled his practice. For five consecutive years, David served in the British army, in Palestine, in North Africa and in Italy, first as a driver and later as an engineer. In 1945, David took up his uniform and returned to the field of architecture and founded a cooperative company in architecture and engineering in Haifa. With the outbreak of the War of Independence, David accepted the call to enlist in the senior defense forces. Despite his being beyond the age of enlistment, he served as a field engineering officer and was involved in planning and managing the fortifications of the Lower Galilee and Jordan Valley communities. In June 1948, with the establishment of the IDF, David was appointed engineering officer of the Golani Brigade and participated in the many battles of the brigade in the Galilee and the Negev and was one of the conquerors of Eilat in March 1949. At the end of the war David decided to continue his service in the IDF, , A subject that stirred his imagination. He held various positions in the engineering corps, including an engineering officer of the Southern Command, a field commander of the engineering corps, and an engineering officer of the Northern Command. One of the highlights of his activities in the Northern Command was the paving of an access road from Kibbutz Hulata in the eastern part of Lake Hula, in the waters of the lake, using unique empty barrels to establish the road over muddy, oily land. It was not for nothing that they called him “the brain behind the special operations.” In 1957 David was appointed deputy chief engineering officer. In this role, he continued to develop original weapons and saw his main task in adapting the engineering corps to the special needs of the IDF, while using inventive and improvised improvisation, and soon established and established the Laskov squad, And later became the ‘Laskov’ unit to the Yiftach unit, which is still active in the IDF. It is impossible to enumerate all the inventions and developments of David’s talent and talent in the areas of sabotage, mediation, catch, mining, etc., some of which are still shrouded in secrecy. Some of the developments have become standard weapons, such as explosive devicesThe Viper and the Galil Bridge, and some of them were used at the time and became a common name, such as the “L ‘cargo in Jerusalem,” Laskov cubes “in the canal strongholds, and more. David contributed his inventions to the war against terrorists, and among other things helped El Al in developing a sub-pressure cell to neutralize explosive devices. David participated in all of Israel’s wars, from the War of Independence to the Peace of Galilee. In the battle for Jerusalem in the Six-Day War he was wounded, while using special charges against the positions of the Jordanian army. David took an active part in the War of Attrition in the Suez Canal and worked to fortify the fortifications of the canal line. The Israel Defense Forces won the Israel Defense Prize for 1969. In the Yom Kippur War, at the age of 70, David participated in the battles of the Suez Canal and the Galilean Bridge, which spread across the Canal and served IDF units on the western side of the Canal. David continued to serve in the IDF as the commander of the Yiftah unit until his death, and David Laskov’s contribution to the security of Israel, the IDF, and the engineering corps received widespread recognition and appreciation. In 1964, he was awarded the Israel Security Prize for the development of weapons. In 1969, the Israel Defense Prize was awarded to the Engineering Corps for the fortification of the canal line, largely thanks to it. In 1972 he was awarded an honorable mention by the Defense Prize Committee. In early 1973, Laskov’s team received the Labor Prize from Yiftach. In June 1973, David won the Israel Defense Prize for the second time in the development of the Galilee Bridge. In 1984 he was again commended by the Judges Committee of the Israel Security Prize for his life’s work in the development of weapons. During the period of Mordechai Gur’s tenure as Chief of Staff, David was awarded the rank of Brigadier General, and was awarded the honorary doctorate degree from the Technion in Haifa, and was awarded the title of “Yakir of Haifa.” On February 3, 1989, His military service was put to rest in the cemetery in the village of Samir near Haifa. He was eighty-six when he died. The funeral ceremony was attended by hundreds of soldiers, including the soldiers of the Yiftach unit, the veterans of the unit and the engineering corps, then-defense minister Yitzhak Rabin, then-deputy chief of staff Major General Ehud Barak, Major General Gad Navon, mayor of Haifa Gural, chief engineering officer and members of the family. David left behind a woman, Tzipora, who died about five months after his death, Ben – Prof. Reuven Laskov, daughter Judith Tzur and six grandchildren.
