Funeral of Shir Hajaj
Funeral of Shir HajajEliran Aharon

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu instructed Cabinet Secretary Zahi Braverman on Monday night to formulate a procedure requiring Cabinet ministers and their deputies to attend the funerals of soldiers killed in action or in terrorist attacks.

The move follows reports that the families of the four soldiers who were murdered yesterday when a terrorist rammed a truck into a group of soldiers were angered by the fact that no government minister had attended any of the four funerals today.

MKs and municipal leaders attended the funerals, even though government ministers did not.

The Government Secretariat initially stated that ministers have no obligation to attend the funerals of soldiers and that they may do so at their own discretion. But when the Prime Minister learned of the reports that not a single minister had attended the funerals of the four soldiers Monday and of the subsequent anger of their families, he instructed the secretary to formulate a procedure which would obligate ministers to attend such funerals in the future.