Tel Aviv: International leaders and top Israeli officials attended a state memorial ceremony yesterday for Israel’s former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who died on Saturday.
US Vice President Joe Biden and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the outgoing Czech Prime Minister Jiri Rusnok and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier were among those at the official ceremony outside Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. Affectionately known as “Arik” among his loyalists, Sharon was buried next to his second wife, Lily, at his family’s Sycamore Ranch in the southern Negev desert, a few miles from the northern border of the Gaza Strip.
The white-haired former general had been in coma since January 4, 2006, following a massive stroke which felled him at the height of his political career. He was 85. Ahead of his funeral yesterday, Sharon’s flag-draped coffin was placed on a black marble plinth in the plaza outside the Knesset, or parliament, for the public to pay their last respects.
Channel 2 television said the army had changed the deployment of the Iron Dome aerial defence system batteries in the area to defend against possible rocket attacks from Gaza.
Known chiefly as a ruthless military leader who fought in all of Israel’s major wars, Sharon switched to politics in 1973, championing the development of Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
His early career as a warrior earned him the moniker “The Bulldozer” but most world leaders chose to remember the politician who surprised many by masterminding Israel’s withdrawal of 8,000 settlers from Gaza in 2005.
That move was part of a policy of separation from the Palestinians that earned him the hatred of his former nationalist allies and also led to the construction of a sprawling barrier along Israel’s border with the West Bank.AFP
