Last Thursday Staff Sergeant Yevgeny Timpoyev, 20, from Rishon Lezion, phoned his brother Yuir and told him that his battalion was entering Lebanon.
“Tell mom not to worry,” he said. On Monday morning Yevgeny’s mother Anna received the horrifying news: Her son was killed when an anti-tank missile directly hit the IDF bulldozer he was driving.
Yevgeny was killed on the last day of fighting before the ceasefire between Israel and Hizbullah went into effect along with another soldier, whose name has not been released as of yet.
Yevgeny’s fellow Battalion 605 soldiers are still in Lebanon, and therefore many of them were unable to attend his funeral.
“We are trying to create a situation so that some soldiers will at least be able to visit the family home during the Shiva,” Deputy Battalion Commander Shachar Beck said.
Yevgeny was a favorite among members of his company. He wanted to get a degree in computers once released from the army, and even had his own website where he posted poems and stories from his company. Friends described him as funny, a "man who looked like a boy."
'He loved electronic music and heavy rock'
Yevgeny immigrated to Israel six years ago from the former USSR along with his mother, Anna. His other brother, Uri, 29, arrived in Israel a year before them. Yevgeny's father, Oleg, left the family twenty years ago.
Yuri said that it was clear that Yevgeny would serve in a combat unit. "Yevgeny looks forward to the army. From the beginning, he wanted to serve in a combat position. He was a real soldier, he loved the army and what he did, he wasn't afraid of going into Lebanon, he thought of signing on more time in the army, but, out of consideration for his mother, forewent a military career." Yevgeny, so his friends say, used to call his mother once a day, to calm her regarding his army service.
"He loved electronic music and heavy rock and would always ask me to teach him to play guitar. What's saddest is that I never had time for that," Uri recounts sadly. Yevgeny leaves behind his mother, Anna, his brother, Uri and his girlfriend, Irena.