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Funerals Held In Paris, Jerusalem For Paris Attack Victims

Mourners in Jerusalem cry during the funeral of four Jews killed in an attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris last week.
Jack Guez
/
AFP/Getty Images
Mourners in Jerusalem cry during the funeral of four Jews killed in an attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris last week.

In Paris and in Jerusalem, the victims of France's deadliest terrorist attack in more than 50 years were being laid to rest.

The BBC reports that in Paris, President François Hollande honored three police officers killed during the attacks with France's top honor, the Legion d'honneur.

During the ceremony, Hollande said the officers — Franck Brinsolaro, Ahmed Merabet and Clarissa Jean-Philippe — had "died so that we may live in freedom."

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem leaders and families gathered to bury the four Jewish victims of an assault on a kosher market in eastern Paris.

The New York Times reports:

"Relatives of the victims each spoke briefly and lit a torch in memory of their loved ones before stepping off the stage with a huge Israeli flag in the background to embrace Israel's president, the prime minister and his wife.

"Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, Francois-Michel Saada and Phillipe Braham died Friday during a tense hostage standoff at the market on the eastern edge of Paris. The bodies were brought by plane to Israel early Tuesday morning.

" 'Yoav, Yohan, Phillipe, Francois-Michel — this is not how we wanted to welcome you to Israel,' President Reuven Rivlin said, his voice quivering. 'We wanted you alive, we wanted, for you, life. At moments such as these, I stand before you, brokenhearted, shaken and in pain, and with me stands and cries an entire nation.' "

Meanwhile, France announced what France 24 calls an "unprecedented" deployment of troops on Monday.

According to the network, some 10,000 soldiers will be on the streets amid "efforts to beef up security and track down possible accomplices" of the terrorist attack.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.
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