Category: Our Heroes

Arutz 7 9 Elul 5671

Itamar Resident Murdered

Itamar Resident Buried Meir Lixenberg, 36, father of five, was murdered yesterday afternoon by Arabs on his way home from work. As his car approached his home community of Itamar, south of Shechem, shots rang out; the driver was unhurt, but drove immediately to the nearby army base when he saw that his friend had been hit in the head. Efforts to revive Meir proved fruitless. The IDF, in response, destroyed a PA paramilitary post in Kalil, between Itamar and Shechem.

Meir Lixenberg, a member of the Itamar Local Council, was buried at 3PM in his hometown, and many thousands participated in the funeral. The family and Itamar had originally wanted the procession to leave from the Prime Minister’s Office, but this was canceled by army request. Itamar’s Rabbi Natan Chai said during his eulogy that the IDF had advance information on the presence of the terrorist cell in one of the local Arab villages, but because of the order not to hurt civilians, whether or not they are protecting terrorists, the army did not liquidate the cell.

Rabbi Avi Ronsky of Itamar told Arutz-7 today of the great loss his community had suffered: “Michael [pronounced Micha-el] was head of security for the four Shechem-area communities here [Brachah, Itamar, Yitzhar, and Elon Moreh], and he was very involved in arranging programs for bringing families to visit and to live. This very Shabbat a large group of people is coming to us – completely arranged by Michael… We are a strong community, people here are made of rock – but this is undoubtedly a strong blow. He and his wife, who is the communal coordinator here, are among the pillars of our town. In addition, he was a very friendly, pleasant, well-liked man…” Rabbi Ronsky did sound one positive note, however: “Families that were having a hard time of it here, in terms of security and finances, became more determined [to remain after previous violence], and new families came. I assume that this will happen again as a result of this terrible murder.”

Rabbi Ronsky, a senior officer in reserves, was asked what could be done against these fatal roadside shootings. “There is much that can be done,” he said. “Without going into details, we do know where these terrorists come from, and we know where their ammunition depots are. They are all in Area A [under PA control]. We have to act much more forcefully in Area A, and not just once in a while… In addition, it should be noted that in many places, much of Area B [under Israeli security control and PA administrative control] is becoming Area A, in that the army barely ever enters. This gives the terrorists more room in which to work…” He said that in many Yesha areas, the army has deployed only about 50% of the forces that really should be there.

‘No one can fill your shoes’

By Margot Dudkevitch Jerusalem Post May, 30 2001 JERUSALEM (May 30) – Thousands gathered outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem yesterday to mourn the murdered Gilad Zar, 40, calling on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to leave his office and “get to work.”

Anger and frustration were voiced by many; some called for vengeance, while others termed Sharon “chicken” and declared it was time to end the “silence of the lambs” and respond harshly to Palestinian violence.

As the funeral cortege set out from Jerusalem, where it headed for Zar’s home in Itamar before reaching Karnei Shomron where he was buried last night, Palestinians in Kafr Kalil shot at the company, inviting an IDF response of light weapon and tank shell at the source of the firing.

On March 26, Zar was moderately wounded when Palestinians opened fire on his car as he travelled near the Yitzhar Junction. He was hit in the chest, leg, and hand, but despite his wounds managed to reach the nearby army base in his car. He underwent surgery and was released from hospital soon after, continuing his work as Samaria regional security head, on call 24 hours a day.

Speaking at the funeral, his brother Oren declared his heart was broken. “Seventy days ago you were wounded, and yet the Almighty granted you 70 more days to live. Why not 70 years? You were a walking legend… no one can fill your shoes.”

Rabbi Moshe Levinger declared that the IDF should have entered Nablus and confiscated the weapons from the Palestinians.

Samaria Regional Council head Bentzi Lieberman described Gilad as a strong, determined, but sensitive man. “It is hard for me to accept that I will never again hear his voice on the two-way radio, and that we must continue the war without one of the greatest heroes.”

Zar was the scion of a well-known pioneering family. His father Moshe, a Jewish landowner who purchased thousands of dunams of land from the Arabs over the years, was also a member of the Jewish underground. In 1984, the elder Zar was sentenced to several months’ imprisonment for his involvement in the 1980 bomb attack on Nablus mayor Bassam Shak’a, who lost both his legs in the explosion. In 1983, Moshe was attacked by an ax-wielding Arab, who slashed his neck and shot him outside his hilltop mansion in Karnei Shomron.

Binyamin Regional Council head Pinhas Wallerstein said that Zar was respected and loved by many. “Everyone, from the hilltops to the cities, knew him and respected him,” he said.

Zar is survived by his wife Hagar and their eight children

Wednesday, May 30, 2001

Three killed; settlers demand revenge

By Nadav Shragai and Amnon Barzilai Ha’aretz Correspondents

Cries for revenge accompanied by accusations that government ministers are “traitors” dominated the funeral of Gilad Zar, the 41-year-old security officer for northern Samaria settlements who was assassinated yesterday morning in his car outside Kedumim, the northern West Bank settlement.

Two other settlers, 53-year-old Sarah Blaustein and 20-year-old Esther Alon, both from Efrat, were murdered in a Palestinian ambush on the way to Zar’s funeral convoy from the Prime Minister’s Office to Itamar, via the Karnei Shomron road near Kedumim where Zar was killed.PMto review restraint policy, Page 2Meanwhile, Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter and West Bank Palestinian Preventive Security chief Jibril Rajoub met last night in Jerusalem, in the presence of an American representative, while top generals from both sides met in the formal security coordination meeting as part of the effort to begin implementation of the Mitchell Report.

The security coordination session began at 8:30 P.M., in Ramallah, with Central Command Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Eitan, and Judea and Samaria commander Brig. Gen Benny Gantz on the Israeli side, and on the Palestinian side, Amin al-Hindi of the Palestinian Intelligence service, Tawfik Tirawi of the General Intelligence service and Haj Ismail of the Palestinian security forces. It was the first time Tirawi participated in a security session since the outbreak of the Intifada. An American representative also took part in that session. A similar session is planned for today in Gaza.

Zar was shot dead yesterday morning at the Jat junction east of the Kedumim as he drove by in his four-wheel drive vehicle. An ambush involving at least two gunmen, said IDF sources, shot at him from the distance, then approached the car and fired at least two full magazines of ammunition into the car and its driver. An organization calling itself The Regiment of Al-Aqsa Martyrs informed wire services in Beirut that it was responsible for the murder.

The two women from Efrat, on their way to the Zar funeral procession, were killed not far from the Neve Daniel settlement in Gush Etzion, on the Jerusalem-Samaria road. A passing car fired at them. Blaustein and Alon were seriously wounded, with Blaustein dying where the car stopped, and Alon dying in the hospital. Three others in the car were also wounded.

Gilad Zar, one of the founders of Itamar, was the son of Moshe Zar, convicted in the mid-1980s as a member of the Jewish Underground, for serving as the driver of the getaway car when members of the underground planted bombs that crippled then Nablus Mayor Bassam Shaka. He spent only a few months in prison, and was released for reasons of health.

Moshe Zar is one of the leading Jewish land dealers in the West Bank, and is known as one of the key financiers behind Gush Emunim and the Jewish enclave in Hebron. Arabs once attacked him with an ax, plunging it into his skull. He nonetheless managed to reach safety and hospital and later continued his work, which in one of his rare statements to the press he called “redeeming the land for Israel.”

Judea and Samaria Commander Brig. Gen. Benny Gantz yesterday said the army had no proof that Gilad Zar was specifically targeted by the ambushers. But participants in the funeral were convinced that Gilad, who only two months ago was shot under similar circumstances, but like his father before him managed to reach safety and hospital, was indeed targeted.

The funeral procession for Zar began yesterday with a demonstration outside the Prime Minister’s Office, continued to Itamar, the settlement he founded, and then to not far from the scene of the murder, just below the three-story mansion his father built nearly 30 years ago at Karnei Shomron, and from which he runs his land dealing operation.

At one point, near Itamar, an exchange of fire between Palestinians from a nearby village and IDF troops in the area prevented the convoy from continuing.

At each stop on the way, eulogists spoke of Gilad Zar’s selfless work on behalf of the settlement community – and lashed out at the government. Moshe Zar was heard asking “where’s Arik Sharon, my personal friend. Is he afraid to show his face?”

Three of the most hardline ministers in the government, Tzipi Livni, Avigdor Lieberman and Rehavam Ze’evi all spoke on behalf of the government. Livni was shouted down by settlers, with Gilad’s sister Anat Cohen, a prominent Hebron Jewish community activist, grabbing the microphone from the minister and shouting “You have tanks and planes. Start fighting and stop talking.”

Both Ze’evi and Lieberman warned that “revenge is not a private affair,” apparently conscious of the emotional turmoil in the angry crowd, which drew thousands of Gush Emunim supporters from throughout the territories. But they, too, were shouted at by the crowd. Lieberman said “we can’t go on eulogizing the fallen” and asked “forgiveness from the family, the friends and all here at the funeral. We tried and aren’t succeeding.”

When Ze’evi warned that “revenge is not a private affair,” calls of “traitor” and “resign” came from the crowd.

National Religious Party MK Shaul Yahalom, one of Gush Emunim’s first generation, explicitly called on the government “to avenge the murder, cease the cease-fire and kill the murderers.”

Rabbi Moshe Levinger, a friend of Moshe Zar’s for more than three decades, and his in-law through the marriage of their children, called for the immediate establishment of 10 settlements new settlements. Daniella Weiss, of the Yesha Council of Settlements, said “it’s time to face it: We are at war and should rid the country of all of the enemy.”

Gilad’s wife, Hagar, told television reporters that her husband “died for the nation.”

Zar’s murder yesterday prompted rioting in the Jewish sector in Hebron, with Jewish settlers attacking Arab pedestrians and fighting IDF troops who tried to prevent the settlers from taking the fight into Arab Hebron.

Gilad Zar, like his father, rarely spoke to the press, but after he survived the last ambush against him, he told reporters that “we have to put (the Arabs) on their knees, send them back in time 15 years and make them grateful every day for us letting them work for us.” He said that “us pleading with them for peace and a cease-fire is abnormal … the right way is to create a different situation in which they beg us for a cease-fire.”

In addition to his wife, he left eight children, the oldest 15, and the youngest a few months old

 

from Jerusalem Post: Guard killed by terrorists at isolated farm By Margot Dudkevitch (May 9) – Arieh Arnaldo Leon Agranionic was murdered by terrorists early yesterday morning as he guarded the Binyamin farm, a lonely outpost on an isolated hilltop 7.5 kilometers east of Itamar in Samaria. After shooting Agranionic, 48, at close range with Kalashnikov rifles, the terrorists stole his M-16 rifle and fled on foot to a waiting vehicle, which drove off in the direction of nearby Khirbet Yinon. A security patrol from Itamar discovered his body and notified the authorities. A group, called the Hassan Kadi Brigade, said to be politically close to Fatah, claimed responsibility for the murder, saying it was in revenge for the death of Hassan Kadi last week in Ramallah. Security forces are focusing the investigation on intelligence, noting that it is difficult to determine the time of murder because no one heard the gunshots. Trackers detected the terrorists’ footprints heading southeast for several hundred meters up to the spot where a car apparently picked them up. Yesterday morning, residents from the surrounding Jewish communities demonstrated at the Tapuah junction and attempted to prevent Palestinian vehicles from using the road. Security officials declared that the farm was illegal and noted that the civil administration had recently issued an order to stop construction at the site. Itamar residents denied the site was illegal, saying that an agreement had been reached between the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza and the authorities that no additional caravans would be placed at the site, which can only be used as a farm. Security officials are also planning to investigate why Agranionic was on guard duty alone. When asked why no one was with him, Itamar security chief Yossi Levite, who discovered Agranionic’s body, asked: “Would you volunteer to guard here?” Agranionic was buried yesterday afternoon in the cemetery in Yitzhar. The funeral cortege left Ma’aleh Yisrael, where he had lived with his son Oren, 23, until two weeks ago, when he moved to the hilltop which he had planned to fence in and establish a farm. Oren, the oldest of three children, said his father’s dream had been to set up a farm with chickens, dogs, and horses. Agranionic’s ex-wife Tzipora lives with their daughter Orian, 11, in Barkan. A third child, Dudu, 20, is in the army. “At the age of 22, my father immigrated from Brazil, and married in 1976,” Oren said. “In 1978, he was the first person to move to Ariel and became the first guard there. When the community began to flourish, my father decided to move to a more isolated spot in Samaria. He yearned for the peace and quiet. We moved to Ma’aleh Yisrael and he moved to the hilltop two weeks ago. His goal was to ensure that the land remained in Jewish hands.” Oren noted that his father sometimes guarded alone and sometimes with others. “He was one of a rare breed, known as the anonymous team of guards, who volunteer to patrol and guard the areas armed with their own personal weapons and driving their own vehicles. I will carry out my father’s dream and build the biggest farm in the entire area on that hilltop,” he said.