President visits bereaved families of Israelis killed by rocket fire
‘Terror strikes us all without discrimination and without mercy, and we will never surrender to it,’ Reuven Rivlin says at home of victim Zaid al-Hamamda
President Reuven Rivlin on Monday paid condolence visits to the families of three Israeli men killed a day earlier by rockets fired at southern Israel by Gaza terror groups.
The three were Moshe Agadi, 58, killed when a rocket hit his home in the southern city of Ashkelon early Sunday morning; Ziad al-Hamamda, 47, killed in a separate rocket attack on a factory in the same city; and Pinchas Menachem Prezuazman, 21, fatally struck by shrapnel while running for cover in the city of Ashdod on Sunday evening.
The fourth Israeli fatality in the two-day eruption of violence was Moshe Feder, 68, killed when an anti-tank missile fired from Gaza struck his car near Kibbutz Erez.
Feder was to be buried on Monday evening.
In a statement, Rivlin acknowledged the diverse backgrounds of the victims — Bedouin Muslim, ultra-Orthodox, secular, religious — in an appeal for national unity.
“We, the tribes of Israel, are together in good times and bad, in hope and in difficulty, regardless of which tribe we are from. Ultra-Orthodox, secular, religious and traditional, Jews and Arabs – terror strikes us all without discrimination and without mercy, and we will never surrender to it. We are together in celebration and in consolation and I pray with all my might that you will know no more sorrow,” he said at the Segev Shalom home of al-Hamamda in the Negev.
The condolence visits came after a ceasefire between Israel and the Gaza terror groups went into effect at 4:30 a.m. Monday, according to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups, ending two days of intense fighting that saw more than 600 rockets fired at Israel.
Over two days, in response to the rocket fire, the Israeli military conducted hundreds of strikes from the air and land, including one highly unusual targeted killing of a terrorist operative, who the IDF said funneled money from Iran to terror groups in the Strip.
Palestinian medical officials reported 29 dead since Friday, including at least 11 terrorists.
Rivlin was accompanied by Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman during the visit to Prezuazman’s family. The 21-year-old Israeli-American father of one was, like Litzman, a member of the Hasidic Gur sect.
“We say ‘Blessed is the true Judge’ and we know that there is no consolation for such terrible grief as this. We are with you in the true prayer that you will only know happy occasions in the future,” the president said.
Agadi was buried in Ashkelon on Sunday afternoon, as the violence wracked the region, and was eulogized by his brother as a “modest man.”
Prezuazman and al-Hamamda were laid to rest on Sunday night.