By COLlive reporter
Ariel Sharon, Israel’s former Prime Minister and one of the country’s most celebrated and controversial public leaders, was laid to rest on Monday in a state funeral attended by world leaders.
In their remarks, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair praised Sharon for the unilateral “disengagement plan” to resettle all Israelis from the Gaza Strip.
Biden cited Sharon’s “political courage – whether you agreed with him or not – when he told ten thousand Israelis to leave their homes in Gaza for the future of Israel.”
The rectification of the withdrawal –besides for Hamas being elected to power and 70% of evacuees still living in mobile homes in 2010– was evident at the funeral.
Following the memorial service at the Knesset parliament in Jerusalem, Sharon’s body was driven to his family farm some 10 km (6 miles) from Gaza, on Monday.
Israel said it had warned Gazan authorities to prevent any rocket fire during the ceremony, Reuters news agency reported. “It was made clear to them that [… ] it would be a very bad day for anyone there to test Israel’s patience,” a source said.
But fire they did.
Palestinians in Gaza fired two other rockets toward Israel a few hours before the funeral, the military said, but they did not explode inside Israel.
According to reports, rockets were fired later as the funeral concluded and guests had left. Israeli police said they exploded about 6 miles away from the ceremony.
Israeli air force retaliated by hitting terrorists sites. “The Terrorists and their infrastructure operating in the Gaza Strip will not succeed in their grotesque intentions,” said Military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner. “The IDF will seek them out, eliminate their capabilities and pursue them wherever they may hide.”
VIDEO: Full footage of Ariel Sharon’s two funerals
Sharon, born Ariel Scheinermann, was 85 at the time of his death. He suffered a stroke in 2006 and was left in a persistent vegetative state until his death 8 years later, on the 10th of Shevat 5774.
“Sharon was one of Israel’s greatest military leaders,” eulogized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, noting they often disagreed politically (with the Gaza expulsion, most notably). “He belongs to the generation of Israel’s founders and had a central role in Israel’s legacy of valor.”
He was considered the greatest field commander in Israel’s history, and one of the country’s greatest military strategists. After his assault of the Sinai in the Six-Day War and his encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army in the Yom Kippur War, he was nicknamed “The King of Israel,” and “The Lion of G-d.”
Attending his funeral were the Maydanchik family from Kfar Chabad. They used the opportunity to offer male participants to put on Tefillin and say a prayer.
The daughter of the late Rabbi Shlomo Maydanchik OBM, Chairman of Agudas Chassidei Chabad in Israel, married Sharon’s nephew who became a Lubavitcher.
WE THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING YOU DID BESIDES FOR GIVING THEM THE LAND BUT THANK YOU!