Maj. Guy Yaacov Nezri, 25, of Atlit, a company commander in the 52nd Battalion of the Armored Corps, was killed in combat in northern Gaza in October 2024.
Four months later, when his commander, Lt. Col. Dor Ben Simhon, had a daughter, he named her Gaia in memory of his friend Guy.
Ben Simhon, 32, who took command of the 52nd Battalion in April, was killed overnight between Thursday and Friday along with three other soldiers in an explosion involving a tank in southern Lebanon. “We are shattered,” Guy’s father, Mike Nezri, told ynet from abroad.
Many of Ben Simhon’s friends called him “Dabash,” a Hebrew acronym formed from his initials. He had served as Guy’s company commander when Guy was a young platoon commander in the battalion’s forward company.
“It is incomprehensible that he was killed with his friends in a tank. It is simply an unfathomable disaster,” Guy’s father said. “He was in our home dozens of times. He embraced us and became part of the family after the terrible disaster that struck us with the fall of our son Guy.”
“Dabash became an inseparable part of our hearts,” he added. “There are no words for how much pain, how much sadness we feel. He was an exemplary man, an admired commander, warm, loving and very close to our hearts.”
The last time the Nezri family saw Ben Simhon was on the eve of Memorial Day, when he came to visit Guy’s grave. “Dabash knew better than anyone the price of combat, and he did not hesitate for a moment,” Mike Nezri said. “I warned him that he had to break the chain of serious injuries among the commanders of the forward company and that he must not be wounded. In the end, he was not wounded. He fell.”
Nezri recalled remarks his son Guy made to students in Haifa several months before he was killed. “It is good to live for our country, and I am not here to die for our country,” Guy told the students. “We are here to fight and remain alive and whole, to appreciate the continuity of the people of Israel. The people of Israel are strong. They will not remain as we saw them on Oct. 7. That is not the people of Israel. This is a people that has experienced destruction, a people that has always experienced crises — and just as it falls, it also rises very quickly and becomes stronger.”
Guy’s mother, Yael Nezri, said after Ben Simhon was killed: “I am finished. Guy’s commander, Dabash — Dor Ben Simhon, commander of the 52nd Battalion, who named his daughter Gaia — was killed in Lebanon. I can’t believe it. I am broken.”
Guy’s twin sister, Tamar, posted a photo of Guy with Ben Simhon. “Dabash, that’s what we called him for short,” she wrote. “He was Guy’s company commander when Guy was a young platoon commander in the forward company. A beloved and admired commander, who over the years and along the way also became a close friend of Guy, and after Guy fell, a close friend of our family.”
“After Guy fell, and inspired by him, Dor and his wife Ariel decided to name their daughter Gaia,” she added. “Dor also had a custom of getting tattoos based on the names of his daughters. For Gaia’s tattoo, he added a drawing of a crown, matching our family name, Nezri.”
Tamar gave birth to her first son in June last year. At the time, she wrote on social media: “Guy was there in every moment. Present, caressing and embracing. We met God this morning. He hugged us tightly and we hugged him. Light and air entered us, and hope and dreams, and tears of happiness.”
Guy and Tamar had attended officers’ school together at the IDF’s Training Base 1. “He always told me, ‘Always remember, we will get to the army, we will serve a mission and we will become officers,’” Tamar said after her twin brother was killed. “Guy was a company commander, and I am an officer in the Education Corps. He always spoke about values that must be instilled in soldiers — love of the homeland, giving and contributing.”
When Ben Simhon took command of the 52nd Battalion in April, replacing a lieutenant colonel who had been seriously wounded in combat in southern Lebanon, he published a commander’s letter.
“With a tremendous sense of mission, I join a long-standing legacy that is taking shape more powerfully than ever, together with the history of our country since Oct. 7, 2023,” he wrote. “The battalion’s tank tracks leave a mark in every combat sector, as does your fighting spirit — the people of the battalion.”
“In a few moments, we will return to our missions, united and lethal, determined to defeat our enemies for the security of Israel’s residents,” he wrote. “The circumstances of the transfer of command of the battalion command us to continue carrying out whatever is assigned to us, shoulder to shoulder, with excellence and faith in the justice of our path.”
Ben Simhon ended the letter with a line from the Armored Corps’ anthem: “With heads held high, we will return from our mission; after blood-soaked battles, as victors we will raise our flag — we are the tank soldiers.”