Yisrael Galili

Yisrael Galili was born in 1923 in Mandatory Palestine

Galili was born Yisrael Balashnikov in 1923 in Mishmar HaYarden, a moshava in the Upper Galilee, to Russian Jewish parents. He later took the name Galili after the Galilee region where he grew up.

He joined the Haganah at a young age. At 16 he entered the Max Fein Vocational School in Jaffa, where he learned to assemble weapons. In World War II he served in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army and took firearms from the army for the Haganah.

In 1948 he joined Israel Military Industries and worked there for 44 years, heading its development, assembly and testing department for many years. He took part in developing the Dror machine gun and the Uzi. After the Six-Day War, he and Yakov Lior designed the Galil rifle, which the IDF adopted after comparison tests with other rifles.

Galili and Lior received the Israel Defense Prize in 1973 for the Galil. He died of a heart attack on 9 March 1995 at his home in Givatayim. His son Zeev donated most of his gun collection to the IDF History Museum.