‘They live on through you’: Netanyahu visits grieving Dee family at Efrat home
Rabbi Leo Dee tells PM he doesn’t regret for one moment moving to Israel; daughter Tali asks PM how he dealt with pain of the death of his brother Yoni in 1976 Entebbe raid
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a condolence visit to the bereaved Dee family at their home in the West Bank settlement of Efrat on Sunday, after the deaths of sisters Maia and Rina and their mother Lucy in a deadly terror shooting during the Passover holiday.
British immigrant Rabbi Leo Dee told Netanyahu that “I don’t regret coming to Israel one moment,” adding that his late wife, Lucy, “would say the same thing.”
“Now your wife and daughters will live on through you,” Netanyahu told Dee.
Dee told the premier that someone visiting the shiva house had told him that they “can’t imagine what it’s like to lose half your family.”
The rabbi said he responded: “Wait, it’s not half my family, we were seven and now it’s four,” stressing that his family is still strong.
“We’re here, we’re going to move forward, we’ll remember them forever, but we’re resolute,” Dee added.
Dee’s daughter, Tali, asked the prime minister how he dealt with losing his brother Yonatan in the famous Entebbe raid in 1976.
Netanyahu explained that at first, the pain was immense, and though people told him it would pass, he didn’t believe them.
“But they were right,” he said, adding that “the pain you are feeling now will remain for your entire lives, but the intensity will die down.”
Dee, holding his children’s hands, told the premier that his family would learn to move forward: “We’ll remember them forever, but we’re resolute.”
Joining the prime minister at the Dee family home in Efrat, where the family is observing the traditional seven days of mourning, was Netanyahu’s chief of staff Tzachi Braverman, Military Secretary Brig. Gen. Avi Gil, and Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs.
The Dee family buried Lucy just one day after burying daughters Maia and Rina, all three of whom were killed when Palestinian terrorists, who are yet to be apprehended by security forces, opened fire on their car as they drove near the West Bank settlement of Hamra.
Leo Dee was traveling in a separate car just ahead with other members of the family on a trip to Tiberias. He turned back in the wake of the attack and was present as medics arrived to treat his family.
The suspects are thought to be hiding in the northern West Bank.
The family already received visits from President Isaac Herzog, his wife Michal, Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi, National Unity party leader Benny Gantz and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, among others.
Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, head of the Israel Defense Forces Central Command, told the family on Friday that the army had failed in its mission to defend the three and vowed that it will “not rest until we catch the killers.”
“It didn’t even occur to us to blame the IDF. I know you’re doing everything you can,” Dee replied to Fox. “One thing we wouldn’t request, we don’t want you to put any lives of Israeli soldiers at risk in order to catch these people.”
“So if it takes a bit longer, and if it requires other ways of dealing with it, we’re not in a hurry. Find a way that keeps Jewish lives safe,” he added.
Fox also thanked Rabbi Dee for his “extraordinary” response to the tragedy, in reference to the rabbi’s calls for solidarity. Jews around the world answered his call to post Israeli flags on their social media pages as a sign of unity.
Several hours after the deadly shooting, an Arab Israeli man drove his car into a group of tourists near a promenade in Tel Aviv, killing Italian national Alessandro Parini and wounding seven others.
