יום הזיכרון לחללי מערכות ישראל ולנפגעי פעולות האיבה
This evening the Day of Remembrance for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism begins.
Nestled between cypress trees and banana groves alongside a dusty track just north of Kibbutz Sha’ar HaGolan in the Jordan Valley lies a memorial to four members of the Border Police.
On the night of October 8th 1966, windows in Kibbutz Sha’ar HaGolan shattered due to loud explosions from the direction of El Hama valley – then part of a demilitarised zone according to the 1949 Armistice Agreement between Israel and Syria.
Flames were seen about a kilometer and a half from the kibbutz and members of a Border Police unit immediately set out to investigate. Having checked one water pumping station they continued to a tool store in the orchard about 300 meters north-east of the kibbutz. The Border Policemen discovered that a terror cell had blown up and completely destroyed the tool store and a trailer laden with grapefruit crates. As they drove along the track through the orchards towards a second pumping station, their jeep ran over a powerful mine and all four Border Policemen were killed. Two additional soldiers in a vehicle driving behind them were injured.
As later noted in a US State Department telegram and in a statement made by PM Levi Eshkol to the Knesset, the attack was carried out by infiltrators from Syria.
Nissim Cohen, aged 19, from Jaffa, born in Bulgaria.
Yosef Amar, aged 20, from Or Akiva, born in Morocco.
Avraham Levi, aged 21, from Hadera, born in Yemen.
Ya’akov Gigi, aged 18, from Netanya, born in Morocco.
May their memories be blessed.
