"Please pray for the Peace of Israel"  Psalm 122  [Chapter-5] 

Israel's three kidnapped teens, Naftali Frankel, Gilad Shaar, and Eyal
Yifrach, were found murdered on Monday, June 30.  It is believed they
were killed shortly after being abducted.

Israel Heartbroken as Kidnapped Boys Laid to Rest

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging."  (Psalm 46:1–3)

                                                                                                                        

The entire nation of Israel remains brokenhearted and united in grief with the devastated families of the three kidnapped Israeli boys, Naftali Frenkel and Gilad Shaar, both 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, whose bodies were found. Eighteen days after the teens were abducted and killed, their bodies were discovered at about 5 p.m., bound and partially buried in an open field less than 20 kilometers (12 miles) from where they had been abducted. Israeli security forces had been conducting extensive searches in the area, which had been sealed off and declared a closed military zone.

The Israel Defense Forces pour over maps as they scour the country searching for
the abducted teens.  Their bodies were found Monday evening not far from Hebron,
which is in Judea and Samaria.

Ahead of a massive, joint funeral for the three murdered youths on Tuesday, Bat-Galim Shaar eulogized her son Gilad on Monday during a ceremony in their hometown of Talmon. “I sit in your room and I can’t accept that our worst nightmare came true,” she said. Ofir Shaar, Gilad’s father, said dejectedly, “I sit in your room, I look at your bar mitzvah photo album, and refuse to digest it.”“God’s ways are mysterious, and I don’t know why you have left us so young,” Avi Frenkel, Naftali’s father, said at his son’s service at Kibbutz Shaalvim.  “But your death has led this entire nation forward, and there is some comfort.”

Israeli President Shimon Peres comforts one of the parents of the
kidnapped teens.

Uri Yifrach spoke to Eyal in eulogy, saying, “You had a special kind of love for any man ...  What else do you need?  You told me many times, 'if someone asks me for something, I can't refuse.’”

He continued, "Your siblings want you near them, for you to come and give them a big hug.  For you to hug mom.  Mom said that you are now right by God's side.  She asked you to whisper to God, ask Him to give her strength, to give all of us strength.  It'll be hard without you.  We need strength." Yifrach said to the murderers, "You are wrongdoers, the nation of Israel promises that your day will come. ... We are humanitarians, we have love and it will triumph.  We will not break.  We will not give up.  We're here, and you can't change that.  We're a strong nation."  (Ynet)

In an outpouring of national grief on Tuesday, tens of thousands of Israelis from all walks of life gathered to bid farewell to the murdered victims of last month’s terrorist abduction.

 They were buried side by side in central Israel in a cemetery that is within a 15 km radius of their homes. Their shroud-draped bodies, covered in Israeli flags, were transported to the cemetery after separate funerals in each boy’s hometown of Talmon, Nof Ayalon, and Elad.

Israeli President Shimon Peres speaks at the massive, joint funeral for
the three Israelis found murdered last week Monday.

"We prayed for a miracle, unfortunately a tragedy occurred," President Shimon Peres said at the ceremony. “Gilad, Naftali, Eyal,” Peres said.  “Wonderful boys, sons of the whole nation.  Rest in peace.  We will bow our heads but our spirit will not break.  Dear families, I know your suffering and I also know how you dealt with [it]; you turned your grief into a source of hope for the whole nation.  May you find comfort in the building of Zion and Jerusalem.  May you know no more grief.  May their memories be blessed for eternity.”  (Jwire) Netanyahu also spoke at the funeral, saying, “In the last 18 days the figures of Eyal, Gilad and Naftali were carved on our hearts.  We were charmed by the magic of their smile, their kindness, their joy of youth.  Today became a day of national mourning,” Netanyahu said. “The moral chasm that separates us from our enemies is deep and wide,” the Prime Minister said.  “They revere death and we life.  They revere cruelty and we, pity.  This is the secret of our strength, it is also the base of our unification.” “Life has its own strength, like a river that drags us forward, and gives us hope,” concluded Netanyahu.  “An entire nation cries and embraces you. … They will be a source of comfort.”

             

Until the end, Israel held hope against hope that the teens would be found, and last week Sunday, less than 24 hours before the bodies were found northwest of the city of Hebron in Judea, as many as 100,000 gathered at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to dance, sing, pray, and call for the release of the abducted youth. Avi Frenkel had high praise for the event and spoke of the national “unity of fate and a very basic feeling of mutuality.  Many people wanted to come here and we barely have time to see them, we barely have time for ourselves, and it’s an opportunity for us to do something with everybody.”  (Ynet) It is believed that the boys were shot to death close to the time of their kidnapping, perhaps in a panic after Gilad managed to call the police hotline in a desperate plea for help, saying quietly in Hebrew, “I’ve been kidnapped.” The two-minute call that was finally broadcast on Tuesday in Israel was initially considered a prank by police. On the recording, one of his captors can be heard saying in Hebrew, “Head down!”  In Arabic, he orders him to hand over the phone.  After that, there are noises that sound like gunshots and cries of pain.

The kidnappers can also be heard singing.

The parents of the three Israeli teens sit side-by-side during a joint
funeral for their sons in Modiin, not far from their homes.

The Shin Bet (Israeli Internal Security) had found a bullet casing, blood, tefillin (phylacteries), and other forensic evidence in a burnt, abandoned Hyundaiclose to the time of the kidnapping that pointed to the boys’ death, but there was still hope that they might be found alive.  (JPost) Several police officers were dismissed in the wake of a probe that found severe misconduct in the handling of the emergency hotline center on the night three teens were kidnapped. Authorities have named two prime suspects, Marwan Kawasme and Amer Abu Aysha, who are confirmed members of Hamas. The two have been missing from their homes since the kidnapping.  According to the Times of Israel, the land where the boys' bodies were found was recently purchased by the Kawasme family.

Tens of thousands gathered Tuesday for the joint funeral of Eyal, Gilad,
and Naftali. 

Israel Calls for Restraint as Murder of Palestinian Teen Is Investigated

"Do not pollute the land where you are.  Bloodshed pollutes the land … Do not defile the land where you live and where I dwell, for I, the Lord, dwell among the Israelites." (Numbers 35:33–34)

Israeli authorities are working to cool the red hot climate in Israel following the brutal murders of three Jewish teens, Naftali Frenkel and Gilad Shaar, both 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, and one Palestinian teen, Muhammad Abu Khdair, 17, whose body was found July 2. Palestinian residents reported seeing Abu Khdair forced into a vehicle outside a supermarket in the Shuafat section of Jerusalem on Wednesday.  His body was found just hours after his abduction in the Jerusalem Forest.  It was charred and showed signs of violence.  Post-mortem reports suggest the lad was burned alive. Just one day before, the Jewish teens had been laid to rest; their deaths brought the nation to its knees in united grief and mourning.

                      

Tens of thousands of Israelis gathered united in grief at the small

cemetery in Modiin last Tuesday to bid farewell to the three yeshiva

(Jewish seminary) students after the boys' bodies were discovered in

a shallow grave the day before.  All Israel had been praying they would be

safely returned to their parents.

Just prior to the funeral held in Modiin for Frenkel, Shaar and Yifrach, anti-Arab mobs railed through the streets of Jerusalem, conflicting with Arabs on sight as well as with the Israeli police force standing guard. When one teenage protester was asked why she was protesting, she answered, “We are very angry and we came here to protest the terrorists.  We don’t want to live in fear and we don’t want war with the Arabs, but we want the terrorists to stop doing this because we are Jewish.  This is our country!”  (JPost) As news of the Palestinian boy's death began to spread among Palestinian neighbourhoods, Palestinian protests broke out and continued to expand. On Friday, before and after the Palestinian youth was laid to rest, violent protest once again erupted in Jerusalem as Palestinians clashed with Israeli police.

The clashes continued overnight in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and spread to Israeli-Arab towns in northern Israel.  Protesters threw stones, burned tires, and attacked Jewish drivers and torched their cars.