Thousands gather for funeral of slain Israeli couple

"It's impossible to stand in silence in front of a mother and father who were brutally torn apart from their children," Rivlin says.

President Reuven Rivlin speaks at the funeral of Eitam and Na'ama Henkin  (photo credit: GUSH ETZION REGIONAL COUNCIL)
President Reuven Rivlin speaks at the funeral of Eitam and Na'ama Henkin
(photo credit: GUSH ETZION REGIONAL COUNCIL)
A crowd of 10,000 gathered Friday afternoon for the funeral of Eitam and Na'ama Henkin, the victims of Thursday's shooting terror attack near the Palestinian village of Beit Furik.
The couple, who was shot dead by a Palestinian terorrist while driving home, left behind four young children who survived without injury in the bullet-riddled vehicle.
President Rueven Rivlin, MK Tzipi Livni, Eli Yishai, Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat, and minister Uri Ariel, were amongst those who gathered in Jerusalem’s Har Hamenuchot cemetery.
"It's impossible to stand in silence in front of a mother and father who were brutally torn apart from their children," Rivlin said while addressing to the crowd.
"We are facing a brutal wave of terror," Rivlin said to the crowd of settlers. "And you are at the frontlines - paying a heavy price."
"We never stopped building because of the threat of terror and we will never cease to build because of terror," the president added. He asserted that Israel would continue relentlessly in the fight against terror.
A large-scale search is still underway for the perpetrators of the shooting.  “Our forces know how to track down the perpetrators,” a senior security source said.
The IDF had no concrete intelligence alerts for this area prior to the attack; only a general security alert was in place.
The army believes that the same terrorist cell that struck on Thursday may have been responsible for an attack nearby by on August 30, when an Israeli civilian sustained a gunshot wound to the hand in a drive-by shooting.
A gunman in a vehicle fired shots at the driver at the Jit junction, before speeding away. An IDF guard at the nearby Efraim Territorial Division base evacuated the man to Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba. The army said the man was lightly wounded.
On Thursday, Hamas praised the “heroic terror attack” and called for more “quality attacks.”
“Zionists will pay the price for Netanyahu’s criminal policies everywhere,” the group said.