Five days after he fell in battle in the Gaza Strip, youth in Otniel planted 60 olive trees in memory of Otniel resident, Second Lt. Pedayah Mark ob”m, a soldier in Givati recon. Pedayah survived a serious shooting attack in the Hebron Hills where his father, Rabbi Michi, was killed in front of him. His brother Shlomi, a member of the security forces, was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2019. And in the Simchat Torah Massacre, his cousin Elchanan Kalmanson, an officer at the Judea and Samaria division headquarters, fell rescuing the wounded from terrorist attacks.
The planting project comes thanks to cooperation with the Im Tirzu movement, which enlisted to help. Im Tirzu chairman Matan Peleg, who participated in the planting, said at the end of the activity that “we began this morning by visiting the Mark family to console them and ended the afternoon watering olive trees we’d just planted to commemorate Pedayah and to express the eternal, rooted relationship between the People of Israel and the Land of Israel. This is the story of the eternal Jew.”
(Source: Im Tirzu)
Peleg continued: “The story of the eternal People of Israel. From ashes to redemption. They will never break us. We have no other country. We have no other mission, aside from assuring the future of the People of Israel in the Land of Israel, in its state. These 60 trees are just the beginning. We will with God’s help plant hundreds more trees in Otniel in the coming weeks.”
Shai Kalmanson, the son of Elchanan who fell during the Simchat Torah massacre when rescuing the wounded from the terrorists, said that “to plant a tree in the Land of Israel is the realization of the dream of my father and the dream of my family. A dream of fulfilment and strengthening the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. Where the plough ploughs and the seed is planted, that’s where the border will run.”
Shahar Hacohen, Otniel Youth Coordinator, said that “the planting of olive trees today primarily symbolizes the diligence and strength of our faith in the justice of our path. Today we continue the lives and legacies of the residents of Otniel who fell to sanctify God’s name for the completeness of the land.”