Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin visited the Nativ family in Bat Ayin on Monday. The Nativ family is sitting shiva, the traditional seven days of mourning over the death of a close relative, after losing their son and brother Shlomo in a terrorist attack on Thursday.
Shlomo, 16, was murdered by an axe-wielding Palestinian Authority Arab terrorist, who has not yet been caught. A seven-year-old boy was wounded in the attack.
Rivlin told the grieving family, “The fitting response to the dispicable murder of Shlomo is to expand our hold over the land and deepen our roots on it.”
The family told the veteran MK that there had been warning signs in the weeks leading up to the attack. Security in the area had become less stringent, they said, and terrorists' success in grabbing two weapons from IDF soldiers showed that the area was being targeted.
Daniel Winston, a staffer at the Bat Ayin Talmud Torah School where Shlomo was a student, said, "Shlomo was very sweet and unpretentious. He got along with everybody and was always looking for ways to help his friends and teachers. Overall, he was a wonderful kid."
Chaim Nativ, Shlomo's father, requested that Rivlin do what he could to grant a temporary leave from prison to Ofer Gamliel, the father of the young boy wounded in the attack. Gamliel is a close friend, Nativ explained, and meeting with him would ease the family's pain.
Rivlin told Nativ he would attempt to gain a leave for Gamliel. Gamliel was granted a brief leave last week to visit his son in the hospital, but was required to conduct the visit in handcuffs and with a police escort.
Gamliel, a father of seven, has served seven years of a 15-year sentence for attempting to plant a deactivated bomb near an Arab school in Jerusalem. Gamliel and co-conspirator Shlomi Dvir were convicted of attempting a fatal attack on the school. The two say they knew the bomb would not explode, and were planting it in an attempt to make a point.
Last week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called the bereaved family and promised to fight terrorism and do whatever necessary to find Shlomo's attacker.