JERUSALEM, Israel – Amir Khoury, an Arab Christian police officer who was killed while thwarting a terror attack near Tel Aviv, was hailed a “hero” by hundreds of mourners who laid him to rest on Thursday.
Priests, friends, family members, and people who had never met him before gathered at Khoury’s hometown of Nof Hagalil, in Israel's north, to pay their respects. Khoury’s fellow officers carried his coffin, draped in an Israeli flag, to his final resting place inside the city’s military cemetery.
“It can’t be that he’s inside. It can’t be,” said Shani Yashar, Khoury’s fiancée.
“Love of my life, you are a true hero. You walked into the fire without an iota of fear… Only you had that courage,” Yashar said in a euology next to his grave. “Rest in peace, my hero of Israel. Hero of the whole people of Israel.”
Khoury, 32, was called to the scene of a terror attack on Tuesday in the Orthodox Israeli city of Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv. He and another cop directly engaged with the Palestinian gunman and he was mortally wounded, making him one of the five victims who were killed in Tuesday’s attack. Israeli officials say his action prevented more deaths.