Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led a tree-planting ceremony on Monday to mark Tu Bishvat in the Neve Ya’akov neighborhood of Jerusalem, where a Palestinian terrorist killed seven people last month.
Netanyahu was joined by Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion and family members of the murder victims, as well as police officers, medics and paramedics who treated the wounded at the scene of the Jan. 27 attack. The following day, another Palestinian terrorist shot and seriously wounded an Israeli father and son near the entrance to the City of David National Park adjacent to the Old City in the Israeli capital.
“Dear bereaved families, I know the pain that you are going through, our heart is with you, the heart of the entire people. This tree is the tree of life. They come to sow death and we plant life. Several days ago, they murdered seven of our loved ones and here we are, a few days later, deepening our roots in our land,” said Netanyahu on Monday.
“We know that the proper response to terrorism is to strike at it and to deepen our roots in the soil of our homeland. We are striking at terrorism. A day later, a murderous band tried to carry out another murder at a restaurant at Almog Junction, to murder dozens of Israeli citizens and—miraculously—they failed. Today, IDF soldiers, together with the ISA [Shin Bet], have eliminated five of these terrorists, two of whom tried to carry out the attack at Almog Junction,” added the prime minister.
