Following a security situation assessment conducted by the Chief of Staff, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced on Wednesday evening that hundreds of entry, work and residence permits in Israel will be denied to the family members of the terrorist who carried out Tuesday’s attack near Ariel.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz approved the decision, in continuation of the policy used in the past year when the entry into Israel of approximately 3,000 relatives of Palestinian Arab terrorists who carried out terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens and the security forces was prevented.
The denial of the permits will financially harm the terrorist's entire environment, including distant circles, in order to prevent other terrorists from being motivated to carry out attacks.
Earlier on Wednesday evening, Michael Ledigin who was murdered in the attack was laid to rest.
Yevgenia, Michael's widow, paid tribute to her husband at the funeral in the Bat Yam cemetery, saying, "I wish that no family would enter the cycle of bereavement. My husband loved Israel, and wanted to make Aliyah.''
Bat Yam Mayor Tzvika Brot also spoke at the funeral. "Yesterday, Michael's son asked for a gift for Novy God. I asked him ‘What do you want?’ And he replied, ‘My father.’ That’s a gift we cannot give him."
Ledigin was 36 years old, a father of two children, who made Aliyah to Israel five years ago and worked as a truck driver.
On Wednesday afternoon, Motti Ashkenazi, father of three and grandfather of two grandchildren who was also murdered in the attack, was laid to rest at the Yavne cemetery.
Eti, Motti's sister-in-law, described "an optimistic person, always calm, likes to help, pleasant and quiet, for whom the family was the most important". Eti added that "he would happily go to work, he was a man of work. He loved long journeys, loved to breathe the open air in the morning, it revived him."