Tiran Fero, a Druze teenager whose remains were snatched by terrorists from a West Bank hospital, was laid to rest on Thursday afternoon, hours after his body was returned to his family.
Thousands of mourners marched in the funeral procession in Fero, in his predominantly Druze hometown of Daliyat al-Karmel in northern Israel, on what would have been his 18th birthday.
“It’s incredibly sad that we are accompanying her to her final resting place instead of celebrating her big dreams,” Fero’s uncle Eddy said at the funeral, according to Channel 13. “We are now starting to internalize this disaster. I hope that our whole family can survive this disaster and this grief.
Fero’s uncle also pleaded for peace in his nephew’s eulogy. “We are a peaceful group,” he said of the Druze minority in Israel. “I ask everyone to act peacefully after the funeral. There should be no more lives lost. Let’s get back to a quiet life.
Mayor Rafik Halabi, addressing the mourners, described Fero as a lover of life with big plans for the future. “Instead of accompanying her to her wedding, we wrapped her in shrouds,” he said, echoing what Fero’s father said earlier Thursday about the painful irony of burying his son. son on his birthday.
Fero was seriously injured in a car accident in Jenin and taken to a hospital in the Palestinian city on Tuesday. He died at Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin, and his body was later snatched away by unidentified gunmen, according to IDF and Palestinian media reports.
Although his family claimed that Palestinian gunmen detached him from life support when they caught him in the hospital, the army and a senior defense source insisted that he was already dead when he was taken away.
His body was returned to his family in Israel early Thursday morning after being held by terrorists in the West Bank for around 30 hours. The body was handed over to the Salem crossing point near Jenin following intense negotiations between senior government and security officials from the Israeli and Palestinian governments, according to reports.
Anonymous security officials said the suspects demanded the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel or the bodies of deceased Palestinian terrorists held by Israel in exchange for Fero, who was a senior in high school.
But Israel ended up giving nothing in exchange for the body, a senior defense source told reporters Thursday morning, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We held no negotiations with those who held the body. We gave nothing back,” the source said. “We made it clear that this body belonged to the family. The Palestinian Authority pushed to end the saga quickly out of embarrassment, and in Jenin the kidnappers lost support after the public realized they would pay a heavy financial price.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.