‘Dad, thank you for saving my life’: Terror victim Netanel Shukrun laid to rest

Hundreds of people attend the funeral of Netanel Shukrun, who was killed in a terror shooting Sunday at a natural spring near the West Bank settlement of Neve Tzuf, with officials and family crediting him for saving his teenage son by warning him of the gunman seconds before he was killed.

Many children and teenagers, as well as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and IDF Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, take part in the late-night funeral in Shukrun’s home community of Alei Zahav, a settlement in the northern West Bank.

Shukrun, a father of six, went to the natural spring with his eldest son to immerse in the water before Yom Kippur in accordance with Jewish tradition. While he was there, the shooter opened fire toward the spring from a vehicle, hitting Shukrun, who was inside his own car at the time.

“At the last second, he warned Yoav,” the son, who was also inside the car, says Shukrun’s widow, Merav. “Thank you, Nati, for your bravery.”

She says they had planned to fly abroad next week, hailing him as “the most involved father in the world” and saying that for 18 years “everything was perfect.”

The son, 16-year-old Yoav, says: “Dad, I want to say thank you for 16 years together. Thank you for shouting to me when the terrorist came in. I don’t remember what you said, and I escaped. Thank you for saving my life, thank God I survived, and I want to tell the family that we will carry on together and it will be okay.

Shukrun is mourned by multiple speakers as a modest, kind man who cared deeply about his family.

Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, speaks at the funeral and calls on the government to launch “a significant military operation” to seize weapons and reinstall checkpoints in the West Bank in response to the attack.

“The nation of Israel expects the government to change its approach after this heinous murder,” he says. “To deal with the entire infrastructure, the village, the imam who incites every Friday. We expect the government to also exact a price in the form of land.”

After the shooting, the terrorist got out of his car and fled on foot, still armed.

Shortly after the attack, the combat tracker for the military’s Binyamin Regional Brigade opened fire on the gunman as he fled, injuring him, according to the IDF.

Shukrun was taken in serious condition to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, where he later succumbed to his injuries.

The terrorist was later captured at a hospital near Ramallah.