Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Monday with the family of Ahmad Abu Latif, a Muslim Bedouin Arab soldier in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) who died last week in an explosion that killed twenty-one soldiers inside the Gaza Strip.
The photo going viral on Arabic social media — the funeral of an IDF Hero: a Bedouin Muslim IDF soldier killed in battle against Hamas in Gaza. All of Israel mourns the precious loss of life of all our soldiers. pic.twitter.com/JJGWR5hN0v
— Adam Milstein (@AdamMilstein) January 24, 2024
As Breitbart News reported last week, the twenty-one soldiers — all reservists — were killed by buildings that were about to be demolished when terrorists fired rockets at them, prematurely detonating the explosives and causing the buildings to collapse.
The Jerusalem Post reported:
IDF Sgt.-Maj. (res.) Ahmad Abu Latif, 26 from Rahat, a dedicated reserve fighter in the 8208th Battalion,was among the 21 soldiers killed on Monday in the collapse of a building under fire in the center of the Gaza Strip.
Ahmad Abu Latif, known among many students at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where he served as security staff, leaves behind a grieving family, including a wife, an 11-month-old daughter, his parents, and 11 siblings.
Abu Latif wrote a post on social media that promoted coexistence, from which the Post quoted:
For me, the people I live and work with are my brothers and sisters, and we all live together and respect each other in our land. I am proud to be a Bedouin who served in the IDF… I had the privilege to defend and protect in a meaningful service that I will never forget. … The Bedouin community mourns the civilian victims who were murdered for no injustice – Jews, Christians, or Muslims. And I want to take this opportunity to inspire everyone who reads this! We all share the same destiny, and we must be together and united.
In a statement, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office said:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Monday, 29 January 2024), in Rahat, paid a condolence call at the family home of the late IDF Sergeant First Class (Res.) Ahmad Abu Latif, who fell in battle in the Gaza Strip.
The Prime Minister heard from family members about Ahmad’s special and unique personality, and his heroism. His father Tewfik told about how his son always hosted soldiers at their home and told them: This is your home, this is your homeland. Ahmad’s brother Kaid said that Ahmad believed in the unity of the people and its shared destiny, and that the current war had underscored this, that we were all together in the campaign. Kaid suggested memorializing his late brother by awarding the Prime Minister’s Prize to pioneering research in the shared existence of Jews and Arabs in Israel.
Prime Minister Netanyahu to the family [translated from Hebrew]:
“There is a very interesting phenomenon that the public, I always say, has very refined senses. Even though they did not know Ahmad, but only saw a picture or heard some sentence, they absorb it immediately. Because of this, the entire people of Israel came here.
All citizens of Israel are coming here. I want to tell you that this truly reflects a very deep thing that happened here. This brotherhood and this partnership, that we know that we are fighting for the home of us all, and that people have fallen. Ahmad fell for the home of us all. He said this and expressed this even while he was alive.
I mourn this loss together with you, with his wife, with little Mansura, with the grandfather, the family and the siblings. I mourn together with you, I know what it is to lose a brother; I also saw my parents in their moments of sorrow. But the people here are very united, and this is a turning point.
I think that your suggestion is very interesting. I think that it must be advanced. There is an example here, I am not just saying this – Ahmad was an example. I also see the spirit and the light that it gives, genuine light, a good soul.
I visited the Desert Reconnaissance Battalion. One of the Bedouin officers told me: ‘On the way to the area adjacent to the Gaza Strip, I saw a woman who had been beheaded. It is against this that we are fighting.’ That is what he said. ‘Against this we are fighting.’ Against this we are fighting – fighting together.
This sense of ‘together’ needs to be expressed now with even greater intensity. There is a great contribution – unity – to heroes like Ahmad because it affects the entire public. It penetrates through to the heart, together.
The state is a diamond. It is a diamond that will also be in time of peace – but without the monsters.
I would like to thank you all. I would like to thank you and the mother; she is in deep sorrow.”
Dozens of Bedouins and Arabs were murdered by Hamas during the October 7 attack — and many risked their lives to save those of Israeli Jews.
Polls have suggested that the October 7 attack united Israelis of all faiths and ethnicities against Hamas.
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 2021 e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now updated with a new foreword. He is also the author of the recent 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.
