"It's touching to see that so many people have come to remember the victims": 26 years after the massacre in Naharayim, KKL-JNF in collaboration with the Beit Shemesh Municipality and the Jordan Valley Regional Council, held a ceremony in the memory of Natali Alkalai, Shiri Badayev, Nirit Cohen, Karen Cohen, Ya'ala Me'iri, Adi Malka, and Sivan Fathi who were brutally murdered by a Jordanian soldier in 1997.
A special memorial site was established in the site of the attack with the collaboration of KKL-JNF.
The site was initiated by Orna Shimoni, who was among the first to reach the site after the attack. Shimoni is a veteran social activist and a resident of Kibbutz Ashdot Ya'akov Ihud who lost her son Eyal during his army service in Lebanon. Before the attack, Shimoni worked to establish a park for Israeli and Jordanian youth in the Island of Peace. After the massacre, however, she changed her plans and asked to establish the memorial site.
Before the ceremony, the families of the victims and high school students from schools in northern Israel conducted a special march in the memory of the seven girls. The march started at Ashdot Ya'akov Ihud and concluded at the memorial site. About a thousand people attended the ceremony. The high school students have prepared a touching musical performance in the memory of the seven girls.
KKL-JNF Chairwoman Ifat Ovadia-Luski: "despite the many year that passed, the great pain of the families which we all share is still here. At KKL-JNF, we see great importance in holding the ceremony every year, so that the girls will never be forgotten. KKL-JNF took part in the development of the site and will take part in other commemoration initiatives in the future. We will defeat terrorism through education of the younger generation, through the development of the land, through the connection to the soil and through commemoration."