Efrat Libi, aunt of 19-year-old David Libi who was killed in Gaza, recalls his lifelong dream to serve, his work as a contractor alongside the IDF, and the family’s heartbreak.
Efrat Libi, aunt of David Libi, who was killed Thursday in Gaza, spoke about her nephew, describing how he succeeded in joining the soldiers in Gaza, despite his rejection from a combat unit.
Libi, 19, from the community of Malachei Hashalom, was working on engineering tasks for the IDF as a civilian contractor employed by the Ministry of Defense. He was killed in an explosive device blast in Jabaliya, Gaza.
“David, our sweet nephew, it’s hard to believe that of all people, he is the one who was killed in Gaza,” she wrote. She shared that he “so badly wanted to enlist, but wasn’t accepted into combat — and he didn’t give up. He entered as a civilian worker with a backhoe, together with his father’s construction company.”
She described David’s lifelong bond with engineering tools: “For as long as I can remember, he was with the backhoe. At one year old, he was driving it back and forth on the ground. At five, they bought him one of his own and he moved dirt from here to there. By age ten, as the eldest grandchild, he was already organizing all his cousins like a site manager.”
She went on to describe the family’s pain and quoted David’s mother, Sarah: “She told me that it was clear he had to go there, and that everything is Divinely guided.”
But alongside the acceptance, there’s also frustration: “I’m a little angry,” she wrote, adding that the explosive device he drove over was likely planted after a ceasefire had been declared.
Meanwhile, about ten days ago, the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on the company owned by David’s father, “Libi Construction and Infrastructure Ltd.,” through which David was working in Gaza, as his aunt described.
The UK claimed that the sanctions were imposed on the grounds that the company “provided logistical and financial support for the establishment of illegal settlement outposts, which led to the forced displacement of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories — activities that cause psychological suffering to Palestinians and often result in violence against them.”
