Jewish victims in French shooting buried in Israel (AP) Associated Press) By DANIELLA CHESLOW JERUSALEM, ISRAEL 03/21/12 10:50 am ET)
Source: http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120321/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_france;_ylt=Anqpwf75aV1JSCzjmCItKN8LewgF;_ylu=X3oDMTJuc244MzM3BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTIwMzIxL21sX2lzcmFlbF9mcmFuY2UEcG9zAzExBHNlYwN5bl9wYWdpbmF0ZV9zdW1tYXJ5X2xpc3QEc2xrA2pld2lzaHZpY3RpbQ--
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JERUSALEM – A rabbi and three children gunned down at a Jewish school
in France were buried Wednesday in a Jerusalem cemetery, with a
bereaved mother and wife begging her slain loved ones to "come back
home."
The four were killed Monday in the French city of Toulouse when a man
on a motorcycle opened fire with two handguns outside the school.
Hundreds of French police descended on the hideout of the suspect — a
Frenchman of Algerian descent — in Toulouse on Wednesday, but by
midday still hadn´t drawn him out after hours of gunbattles and
negotiations.
The bodies of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his sons Arieh, 5, and Gabriel,
3, and 8-year-old Myriam Monsenego were flown to Israel early
Wednesday. The families had asked for burial in Israel; the children
held dual Israeli-French citizenship and the rabbi had lived in
Israel for years.
At the funeral ceremony, Myriam´s eldest brother, Avishai, in his
20s, wailed and called to God to give his parents the strength "to
endure the worst trial that can be endured."
In the name of the four remaining Monsenego children, he urged his
father and mother to "keep going, keep going, keep going."
Hundreds of mourners, many of them sobbing, thronged around the
bodies laid out on stretchers as eulogies were delivered. The slain
members of the Sandler family had been wrapped in white prayer shawls
while Myriam had been draped in black velvet.
Mourners then walked to the burial grounds. Men carried the bodies on
stretchers and buried them, while women watched from behind a nearby
fence.
Later, Eva Sandler, the widow of the slain rabbi, walked to the
freshly covered graves of her sons and husband and laid her hands on
them. "Come back home," she cried out in French.
Israeli media reported that Sandler is pregnant and had arrived in
Israel with her remaining child, a toddler.
Among the mourners were grieving relatives who arrived from France,
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and leaders of the French Jewish
community.
"We must fight this extraordinary propaganda against Israel and Jews
everywhere, against innocents, which leads these people to perpetrate
such barbaric acts," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told
Juppe.
Juppe said France was committed to fighting such terrorism. "It´s a
threat for you, it´s a threat for us and I think for the world," he
said.
In his eulogy, Israeli parliament speaker Reuven Rivlin said the
Jewish people "once again find themselves facing beasts ... driven
out of their minds by hatred."
Juppe said "an attack on a Jew in France is not only an issue for
French Jews. ... Anti-Semitism is against all French values."
The school attack was the bloodiest France has ever known and the
bloodiest assault on Jewish targets there in decades.
Meanwhile, hundreds of French police on Wednesday surrounded the
Toulouse hideout of a man suspected in the school shooting and two
earlier attacks that killed three French paratroops. A gunbattle
erupted and police were trying to negotiate the man´s surrender.
French Interior Minister Claude Gueant described the suspect as a 24-
year-old French national who claims connections to al-Qaida
and "wants to take revenge for Palestinian children" killed in the
Middle East.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad denounced the deadly shooting
attack and condemned the link to Palestinian children.
"It´s time for criminals to stop using the Palestinian cause to
justify their terrorist actions," Fayyad said in a statement. "The
children of Palestine want nothing but dignified lives for themselves
and for all the children in the world." (© 2012 The Associated Press
03/21/12)
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