Matityahu, Gabriel

Son of-Zion and Gerti. He was born on May 9, 1947 in Tel Aviv. Gavriel studied elementary school at the Yehuda Maccabee School and completed it successfully. He attended high school in the biological track at the municipal high school. Gabriel was naturally quiet, accepting the authority of his parents and teachers. He liked sports, loved music (classical and modern). He had a fine sense of humor and had many talents. He had positive values, according to his teacher in the upper grades of the high school. He was always willing to consider others and sacrifice in order to achieve the goal. When the time came to enlist, he was offered the opportunity to join the air force and to go to the pilots’ course, which appealed to him very much and wanted him with all his soul. After he was not accepted because of his vision, he decided to enlist in the Armored Corps; This was in October 1965. After his training and the “professions” in the Armored Corps he was referred to a course of tank commanders and finished. He took part in the activities of Samu and Tel Katzir and was later offered to remain as a guide in the Armored Corps School, but Gabriel decided to go to a combat unit. During the Six-Day War, he served as a tank commander, and his battalion, although he knew quite a few casualties, was the first to reach the Suez Canal. After the war he came for his first leave, but a few days later he returned to his unit. His last visit to his parents’ home was in early July 1967. He took part in the fierce battle that took place at Port Tawfiq, and after the battle there, during the cease-fire, he was wounded in the head by a sudden bombardment of the enemy’s air. He was brought to the hospital and spent five days struggling for his life until he died of his wounds on July 19, 1967. He was laid to rest at the military cemetery in Kiryat Shaul. His teammates say they were attacked during the cease-fire, but Gabriel, as a tank commander, managed to get the crew into the tank, because he wanted to enter last; He was wounded in the head. His comrades-in-chief set up a temporary synagogue and a memorial monument. The Tel Aviv Municipal High School published a book in memory of its graduates who fell in the name of “sad flowers.” In the Yalkut of the sons who fell in Israel’s wars – the fourth volume of “Goily Ash” – was brought from his estate.