Police desecrate the Shabbat and there's a funeral

(IsraelNN.com) Relatives of Danny Rubin z"l and Achikam Amichai z"l, two young soldiers who were murdered by terrorists on Friday, said earlier in the week that police had entered the room in which the two young men’s bodies were being held on Shabbat. The police examined the bodies, took fingerprints, and photographed the bodies, the relatives said, in order to check Palestinian Authority claims that the young men died during a business dispute and not in a terrorist killing.

Police explained on Sunday night that they had not performed the examination due to the PA’s accusations, but rather as a standard procedure performed after every murder in order to gather evidence to be used against the killers. Police said they had attempted to perform the examination before Shabbat, but had been unable to do so. The examination had to be performed as quickly as possible, they said, and therefore could not have waited until Saturday night.

I don't remember if I blogged it yet or not, but on Saturday - after the two young Israeli hikers were murdered - the top "Palestinian security official" announced that his "government" was dismantling "militant groups." He said,

"There is no Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades any more."

Liars.

And the two young soldiers on leave, hiking in the Hebron hills before Shabbos, "died during a business dispute"?

Liars, cheaters, murderers, terrorist scum.

Note: I repeated a media mistake that the two young men were from Kiryat Gat, when in fact they were from a settlement suburb of Hevron called Kiryat Arba. Kiryat Arba was founded in 1968, 1970 or 1971, depending on who you ask. In April 2004, Ariel Sharon promised that

"Places like a strong Maale Adumim, a strong Ariel, a strong Givat Ze'ev, a strong Gush Etzion. I would add a strong Jewish community of Hebron and a strong Kiryat Arba. These places will remain in Israeli control and will continue to be strengthened and developed," Sharon said. "Only support for the disengagement plan will allow us to continue to manage a relentless battle against terror," Sharon said. "Disengagement allows us a free hand to act against terror."

But Sharon is gone. And now, so are Ahikam and David.

Read this ... and this.

Cpl. Ahikam Amihai, 20, and Sgt. David Rubin, 21 (MFA)

These young men were sons of rabbis, full of life and courage and deep love for the Land of Israel. They were elite soldiers... and fearless trekkers.

.... The hike Ohion, Amihai and Rubin had planned Friday was to have ended at the springs in Wadi Iskha, where there is a cave hundreds of meters long with numerous levels and crawl spaces, inhabited by fruit bats. According to one theory, the cave served as a hideout for the second-century CE rebel against Rome, Bar Kokhba. Amihai, who served for a year with Hebrew University's Cave Research Unit, knew the cave and wanted to show his friends.

.... Ohion told her friends that, at the beginning of the hike, an elderly Arab passed them, and they began to recall the story from the 1948 war of an elderly Arab who passed 35 Jewish fighters attempting to reach the besieged communities of the Etzion Bloc. The fighters were later attacked and killed. According to one version of the story, it was the elderly Arab who informed others of their presence.

Ohion told her friends they were making black-humor jokes about the historical incident. "We could never imagine that our hike would end up like theirs," her friends said she told them.

About an hour later, she said, a gray Land Rover appeared and drove toward the three hikers, with a rifle barrel sticking out of the window. A Palestinian sitting in the back seat sprayed the three with bullets. Amihai and Rubin were hit, and Ohion ran to hid behind bushes above the trail. When she heard the shooting die down and the terrorists' vehicle drive away, she came out of her hiding place.

Ohion saw her friends' bodies riddled with bullets. After her attempts to resuscitate them failed, she climbed out of the wadi to a high point where she could use her cell phone, and waited there until help came.

Rabbi Dov Lior [the rabbi of Kiryat Arba] in his eulogy said that both Rubin and Amihai fulfilled the commandment to travel the length and breadth of Israel in their lives, and in their deaths.

"They fell in the war for the right to
live and move freely in our holy land."

And so we mourn our children. Again.

May their souls be bound up in the bond of eternal life, and may we be inspired to acts of charity and kindness to honor their memories.

And may He Who blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ... bless the fighters of the Israel Defense Forces, who stand guard over our land and the cities of our God, from the border of the Lebanon to the desert of Egypt, and from the Great Sea unto the approach of the Aravah, on the land, in the air, and on the sea.

May the Almighty cause the enemies who rise up against us to be struck down before them. May the Holy One, Blessed is He, preserve and rescue our fighters from every trouble and distress and from every plague and illness, and may He send blessing and success in their every endeavor.

May He lead our enemies under our soldiers' sway and may He grant them salvation and crown them with victory. And may there be fulfilled for them the verse: For it is the Lord your God, Who goes with you to battle your enemies for you to save you.

V'imru - and we say - Amen.

UPDATE. How is that my dear friend Shirl knew to send me this Daily Dose of Wisdom from the Rebbe? Go figure.

To one whose self is his body, death of the body is death of the self. But for one whose self is his love, awe and faith, there is no death, only a passing. From a state of confinement to the body he makes the passage to liberation. He continues to work within this world, and even more so than before.

The Talmud says that Jacob, our father, never died. Moses, also, never died. Neither did Rabbi Judah the Prince. They were very high souls who were one with Truth in an ultimate bond —-and since Truth can never die, neither could they.

Yes, in our eyes we see death. A body is buried in the ground and we must mourn the loss. But this is only part of the falseness of our world. In the World of Truth they are still here as before.

And the proof: We are still here. For if these high souls would not be with us in our world, all that we know would cease to exist.