Former Israeli soccer star Lior Asulin is among the more than 260 killed by Hamas terrorists at the Supernova music festival this weekend.
Asulin was at the festival celebrating his 43rd birthday.
Viral videos captured the moment Saturday morning when Hamas paragliders descended on the festival that was held near the border with Gaza. Partygoers, who only moments before had been dancing, suddenly found themselves running for their lives as shots rang out. Dozens were taken hostage, and among those killed was Asulin.
This is what Hamas did to a peaceful nature festival. Haunting. pic.twitter.com/At2wTowmzf
— The Mossad: Satirical, Yet Awesome (@TheMossadIL) October 9, 2023
Hapoel Tel Aviv, one of the teams Asulin played for during his 20-year professional career, paid tribute to their murdered former player in a post on X:
“With great sadness, after many hours in which he was declared missing, it is now known that the club’s former player, Lior Assolin, was murdered by terrorists at a party in Ra’im. Hapoel Tel Aviv Football Club bows its head and asks to send reinforcements to the members of Lior’s family in their difficult time. Strengthening the security forces. Take care of yourself and your family members.”
עצב גדול. לאחר שעות רבות בהן הוגדר כנעדר, כעת נודע כי שחקן העבר של המועדון, ליאור אסולין, נרצח ע״י מחבלים במסיבה ברעים.
מועדון הכדורגל הפועל תל אביב מרכין ראשו ומבקש לשלוח חיזוקים לבני משפחתו של ליאור בשעתם הקשה.
מחזקים את כוחות הביטחון.
שימרו על עצמכם ועל בני משפחותיכם 🙏🏻
— Hapoel Tel Aviv FC (@HapoelTelAvivFC) October 8, 2023
Asulin played soccer professionally from 1997 to 2017. In addition to Hapoel Tel Aviv, Asulin played for Israeli Premier League teams such as Beitar Jerusalem and Maccabi Herzliya and also played in Cyprus with Apollon Limassol. During his long career, Asulin also played for an Arab team, Bnei Sakhnin, helping them become the first Arab team to win the Israel State Cup.
Bnei Sakhnin’s Lior Asulin gestures as he celebrates after scoring during his team’s historic match against Hapoel Haifa in the State Cup final at the National Stadium May 18, 2004 in Ramat Gan, Israel. No Arab team has ever won a major trophy in Israel, and Sakhnin has already made history just by making it to the final. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)
Asulin scored one of his 175 career goals in that historic match.
Asulin’s former coach at Bnei Sakhnin, Eyal Lachman, described his fallen former player as “a guy with a heart of gold, that was his most outstanding characteristic.”
“They always said that his most outstanding characteristic was to give back. I saw that the most outstanding characteristic was to give his friends his soul.”