IDF chief: Return of Palestinian terrorist’s body was a mistake
Father of murdered Border Police officer: Makes no difference to me, it won’t bring back my son
Returning the body of Palestinian terrorist Nimr al-Jamal who murdered three Israelis was a mistake, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot told security cabinet ministers on Wednesday.
Eisenkot said that the return of Jamal’s body was “an error” which he took responsibility for, and that “lessons will be learned from the investigation conducted on the subject.”
On September 26, Jamal carried out a shooting attack at the entrance to the Har Adar settlement. He killed 20-yearold Border Police officer St.Sgt. Solomon Gavriya from Be’er Ya’acov and two civilian security guards – Youssef Othman, 24, from Abu Gosh, and Or Arish, 25, from Har Adar – before he was shot and killed by security personnel.
Israel handed over Jamal’s remains on Friday evening, in coordination with the Palestinian Red Crescent and the Palestinian Authority Civil Affairs Ministry. His funeral in Beit Surik was attended by thousands of Palestinians, some waving flags belonging to Fatah and Hamas.
Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan applauded Eisenkot’s statement, telling The Jerusalem Post: “I unequivocally believe that the bodies of terrorists should not be returned to their families. We will not rest until we stop the absurdity of returning the bodies of terrorists, as even after his death, he is still a terrorist and should be treated accordingly.”
The father of Gavriya told the Post that Eisenkot’s statement as well as the return of Jamal’s body, had no effect on him.
“As a father it won’t help me at all. I won’t get my son back,” Mahret Gavriya said on Thursday. “Now it’s not life. We lost our happiness, he always made us smile. We are no longer happy now that he’s gone.”
Gavriya spoke to the Post following a ceremony where a Torah scroll was dedicated in the name of his son at their synagogue in Be’er Ya’acov.
The event took place as part of a larger project that began a year ago by Ben-Dahan in cooperation with the Border Police and the Oz and Hadar association, which brings Torah scrolls from abroad to Israel in memory of IDF soldiers who have been killed while in service.
The ceremony was attended by some 500 people including Gavriya’s family and community, Ben-Dahan, Border Police commander Yaakov Shabtai, Military Ombudsman Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brick, head of the Beer Ya’acov local council Nissim Gozlan, Har Adar council head Chen Philipovitch and fellow Border Police officers.
While the event was a joyous one, it was painful at the same time, Mahret Gavriya said.
“I was happy, but it hurt me. How did I get here, that I lost my son? My son was taken to soon. This was like the wedding that he will never have.”
This is the second Torah scroll to have been dedicated through Ben-Dahan’s project to a soldier murdered by a terrorist in recent months. The scroll was donated by Oshik and Anna Forshian in the name of the late Stefan Kowalski who helped Anna immigrate to Israel from Poland.
Last month, a Torah scroll was donated to a high school in Ramat Gan in the name of St.-Sgt. Ron Yitzhak Kokia – a sergeant in the IDF’s Nahal Brigade who was stabbed to death while he was waiting at a bus stop outside a shopping mall in the southern city of Arad on November 30.