President Ephraim Katzir, who attended the completion today in Kiryat Shemona of the traditional seven days of mourning for the 18 victims of the Arab terrorist attack last Thursday, urged the bereaved residents to demonstrate maximum restraint in dealing with non-Jewish Israelis. He said that Kiryat Shemona residents had attacked local Druze coming to the township to work and, in one case, mistook as Arabs the family of a Druze soldier who had been injured by the terrorists and assaulted that family. “A strong nation has to control its nerves at all time,” he said.
Druze notables in Israel sent an appeal to Kiryat Shemona residents, urging them not to mistake Druze for enemies. The appeal said that the Druze were “blood friends” of Israeli Jews, devoted to the state and that many serve in the Israeli army and police forces. The Druze elders said it was a unit of Israeli minorities which made the first attempt to storm the building from which the terrorists were firing at passersby. A soldier from Israel’s small Circassian Moslem community was killed and a Druze soldier wounded.
Calling the tragedy “a deep sorrow of the entire nation,” Katzir noted that the occasion also was the day Israel observes the Holocaust and that it was also “a day of heroism when we sword that Jewish blood will no more remain unavenged.” He said he himself had suffered a loss to the terrorists, referring to the slaying of his brother, Prof. Aharon Katzir, in the Lod massacre in May 1972.
The President expressed the hope that the Kiryat Shemona villagers would overcome their present agony and turn the township into a flourishing city, adding that “our way is that of creation and building.” He said that if the terrorists thought that because of the present political difficulties in Israel they could step up their sabotage actions, they would soon learn they were wrong. He announced a contribution of three fellowships for higher studies for outstanding Kiryat Shemona students.
A large group of Kiryat Shemona residents yesterday stormed the Knesset with demands for more attention to their needs. A ban imposed on entry into Kiryat Shemona of Druze has affected the township’s labor force. It was imposed in the hope of cooling off revenge-seeking residents.
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