'Convoy of 35' monument vandalized for 2nd time this year
For a second time this year, the monument for the fallen soldiers who became known as the 'Convoy of 35'—ambushed and killed in Israel's War of Independence—is found vandalized.
The memorial monument commemorating soldiers, who became known to posterity as the "Convoy of 35", and who were killed during Israel's War of Independence, was vandalized last week for the fourth time since 2013.
In approximately two months, the state will mark the 70th anniversary of the fallen of the convoy—the 35 Haganah soldiers who were brutally killed in battle in 1948, after being ambushed while making their way on foot to reinforce the besieged Gush Etzion residents after earlier motorized convoys were obliterated by Arab irregulars and local villagers.
The Ministry of Defense has repaired the monument several times in the past, only to discover each time that it has been vandalized yet again. The most recent time in which it was defaced was in March this year, when the monument was almost completely smashed to pieces.
The vandalism was discovered last week by Yaron Rosenthal, director of the Kfar Etzion Field School, who—along with several other school guides—carried out a preparatory tour in memory of the convoy's victims.
When the guides arrived at the monument on the battle hill between Moshav Aviezer and Kfar Zurif, they noticed scratches, marble stone fragments scattered on the ground and hammer marks.
"I call upon our neighbor, Minister Avigdor Lieberman, to work to renovate the monument and to establish a visitors' site on the area of the battlefield," Rosenthal said. "This is the Zionist response that is appropriate to the repeated defacing of the memorial."
