Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this evening (Thursday, 11 April 2012), at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, met with IDF orphans from the IDF Widows and Orphans Organization.

Prime Minister Netanyahu told the children: “I am very moved to be here with you; we are all one big family. Every one of you carries the pain constantly. While the pain is personal and different for each of you, we have something in common, a common pain. In this room in which you are sitting, many of the decisions about the country are made. The decisions that are made stand guard over the State of Israel. Your fathers are the heroes who acted so that we might live here and the price is very harsh. We live with the pain every day. I will never forget my brother for a second. The day he was killed was a very difficult day.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu added: “We, the bereaved families, understand each other’s pain even without talking but you should know that talking about it makes it easier and I regret that I only understood this after many years. Without your parents the State of Israel would not exist. 23,000 have fallen in Israel’s wars since the foundation of the state. In the Holocaust, 20,000 Jews were slaughtered every day. The difference is due to your fathers. I wish you only good. Life goes on and you are strong despite the pain and the scars that remain. Help your mothers, who are worthy of admiration.”

The children – including Shira Begin, the granddaughter of Benny Begin, whose father, Maj. Yonatan Begin, fell in Lebanon – thanked Prime Minister Netanyahu. Omer Gerstein, the son of Lt.-Col. Erez Gerstein, who fell in Lebanon in 1999, also participated.

Emily Nastrenko, 13, from Kfar Bin-Nun, also participated. Her father, Alexander Nastrenko, fell in an IDF action in the Gaza Strip in 2002. Emily told her story on radio this morning and said that she has a dream in which the Prime Minister comes to her home in Kfar Bin-Nun. Prime Minister Netanyahu said that he would be happy to visit her in her home in the near future.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)