Thousands of mourners gathered at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl military cemetery Sunday to pay tribute to the fallen hero, Israel Police Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, who died in Saturday’s daring hostage rescue in Gaza.
Zamora led the Yamam counter-terror unit, which succeeded in bringing back four hostages — Noa Argamani, 25; Almog Meir Jan, 21; Andrey Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Ziv, 40. He was the only casualty in the intense firefight.
Praises and tributes poured in from across the nation and around the globe. Hundreds lined the streets of the capital city, waving Israeli flags and standing silently to honor Zamora’s funeral procession as it made its way to Mt. Herzl.
Zamora was buried in a flag-draped coffin with full military honors. The cemetery was filled with people — as it has been for the many burials of the war, with complete strangers often showing up to honor the fallen.
Zamora’s wife fought through tears as she honored her husband. She played a recording of a farewell message from the couple’s two small children.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who lost his brother as the only casualty of the successful hostage rescue operation at Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976, renamed the Gaza rescue operation “Operation Arnon” — just as the Entebbe raid had been renamed “Operation Yonatan.”
A photo surfaced of Arnon Zamora, years before, during his army service, paying his own respects to the falen on Mt. Herzl.
And so the chain of heroes continues.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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