Words 'fell in battle' to be written on terror victim's headstone

This is the the "moral minimum expected of us as a society," his family wrote in response to ministry decision.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Updated: MARCH 14, 2016 17:26
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 Defense Ministry decided Tuesday that the words "fell in battle" will be added to Tuvia Yanai Weissman's gravestone, who was murdered in a terrorist attack last month.
The ministry made the decision after it found that as result of  Weissman's altercation with his attackers, they were ultimately apprehended by Israeli security forces.
This decision came after Weissman's widow Yael demanded that the Defense Ministry recognize that her husband fell in battle.
The Ministry of Defense on Tuesday convened meetings on Tuesday with IDF officials on the matter. IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot's position, which was adopted by the officials, was that Weissman created a "reality of battle" when he confronted and ultimately neutralized the terrorists. For this reason, the officials defined the altercation as a battle.
Weisman's family released a statement on Monday in which it said that given the circumstances of their son's death, this was the "moral minimum expected of us as a society, to give Yanai, a hero of Israel the proper and suitable epitaph on his headstone." 
Three Palestinians minors were indicted in the Judea Military Court last week for the February 18 stabbing spree in which Weissman was murdered.
Weissman, 21, served in the Nahal Brigade and was the father of a baby girl.
Off-duty at the time, St.-Sgt. Tuvia Yanai Weissman had been stabbed in the upper part of his body as he tried to disarm the two 14-year-old Palestinians who had come to the store from Beitunya, the nearby suburb of Ramallah, were they lived. Another shopper with a gun, shot and wounded Ayham Bassam Ibrahim Subih and Omar Salim Rimawi, who were evacuated to hospital in Jerusalem.
Yael Weisman wanted  her husband to be recognized as a soldier who died in action, while the Defense Ministry wanted her to sign that he was victim of a terrorist attack. Whatever is agreed upon would be written on his gravestone’s epitaph.