Israeli terror victim from West Bank attack held US citizenship

Hundreds of mourners gathered Friday morning at Mount Herzl Cemetery in Jerusalem for Tuvia Yanai Weissman's funeral.

By REUTERS, JPOST.COM STAFF
Updated: FEBRUARY 19, 2016 18:18
IDF Sgt. Tuvia Yanai Weissman (R), his wife, and baby (photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)
IDF Sgt. Tuvia Yanai Weissman (R), his wife, and baby
(photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)
The United States condemned in the strongest possible terms on Friday an attack by knife-wielding Palestinians in the West Bank that resulted in the death of a dual Israeli-US citizen, the State Department said in a statement.
The death of American Tuvia Yanai Weissman on Thursday underscores the need for all sides to reject violence, the statement said.
Hundreds of mourners gathered Friday morning at Mount Herzl Cemetery in Jerusalem for Weissman's funeral. The 21-year-old off-duty soldier was murdered in a stabbing attack at a supermarket in the West Bank's Binyamin region on Thursday.
During the attack Thursday in the eastern Binyamin region industrial area, a pair of Palestinian teenagers went on a stabbing spree in the Rami Levy supermarket, leading to Weissman's death and the injury of another shopper.
Weissman, a Nahal Brigade member and married father of a four-month-old baby girl, was pronounced dead at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.
He was a resident of Ma’aleh Michmash, and was off-duty at the time of the attack.
During his funeral, Weissman's father eulogized his son saying, "You loved your daughter, Netta, so much. You took her to see the flowers in the Negev the day before you were murdered. No hate and no enemy will ever stop that."
The slain IDF soldier's battalion commander, Lt.-Col Yogev Bar Shishet also commemorated Weissman at the funeral.
"He was a great soldier and a quiet leader, he never gave up on his right to participate," he said.
Weissman was educated in Jerusalem and took a preparatory military course in Kfar Eldad before enlisting to Nahal. He was married during his military service.
Rabbi Nathanson, the head of the preparatory program Weissman attended also remarked on his former pupil.
"Your wife informed me yesterday that you all had been in a different aisle in the supermarket, you heard screams, and she bent over to cover Netta and you disappeared. You couldn't listen to screaming and stand back, you were like that - you did not have a weapon because you were off-duty. You fought with your fists, your body, your whole heart," the rabbi recounted of a conversation with Weissman's wife.