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The bodies of four Jewish victims of a Paris terror attack on a kosher supermarket arrived in Israel on Tuesday ahead of a funeral to be attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other public figures. (Jan. 13) AP
Mourners march on the street in Jerusalem on Jan. 13 for the funeral of four Jews killed in an Islamist attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris last week.(Photo: Jack Guez, AFP/Getty Images)
Thousands of mourners gathered in Jerusalem for the funeral of four Jewish people who died in an attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris on Tuesday.
At the same time in Paris, French President François Hollande awarded the country's highest honor to the three police officers killed in the attacks, at a ceremony at the police headquarters in the capital.
Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, François-Michel Saada and Phillipe Braham were killed when a gunman stormed the Hyper Casher supermarket in eastern Paris, before taking hostages inside Friday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Sunday that he had instructed government officials to help bring the bodies to Israel for burial, as requested by the families.
"Yoav, Yohan, Phillipe, Francois-Michel — this is not how we wanted to welcome you to Israel," President Reuven Rivlin said, his voice quivering at the service. "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."
"Returning to your ancestral home need not be due to distress, out of desperation, amidst destruction, or in the throes of terror and fear," he said. "Terror has never kept us down, and we do not want terror to subdue you. The Land of Israel is the land of choice. We want you to choose Israel, because of a love for Israel."
USA TODAY
Bulgaria arrests man linked to 'Hebdo' suspect
The four were among 17 people killed in a wave of terror attacks carried out last week by militants. The two gunmen who attacked the offices of Charlie Hebdo in the French capital Wednesday, killing 12 people, had shouted that their mission was to avenge the newspaper's publication of what they said were denigrating cartoons about Islam.
At a ceremony in Paris, officers Ahmed Merabet, 42, and Franck Brinsolaro, 49, who were among those killed in the Charlie Hebdo attack, and Clarissa Jean-Philippe, who was gunned down in a separate attack Thursday, were posthumously awarded France's legion d'honneur by Hollande, who placed a medal on each of their caskets.
"They died so that we could live free," he said, flanked by hundreds of police officers.
French police officers carry the casket of police officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe during a ceremony to pay tribute to the three police officers killed in the attacks on January 13, 2015 in Paris.(Photo: FRANCOIS MORI, AFP/Getty Images)
Hollande vowed that France will be "merciless in the face of anti-Semitic, anti-Muslims acts, and unrelenting against those who defend and carry out terrorism, notably the jihadists who go to Iraq and Syria."
USA TODAY
New 'Charlie Hebdo' cover released
A combination of undated handout photos released courtesy of families shows (clockwise from top left) Yohan Cohen, 22, teacher Philippe Braham, 45, François-Michel Saada, 64, and Yoav Hattab, 21, who died on Jan. 9 at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris.(Photo: DSK, AFP/Getty Images)
The Hebdo attack triggered three days of terror in France, climaxing Friday in the fatal shooting of Chérif Kouachi, 32, and his brother, Said, 34, by security forces in a town north of Paris, and the killing of an associate, Amedy Coulibaly, 32, who had taken over the supermarket.
In an address to the nation Friday evening, Hollande said the deadly attack on the market was unquestionably "an anti-Semitic attack."
The Times of Israel reported that Cohen, 22, worked at the market, while Hattab, 21, was a student of Tunisian origin and the son of the chief rabbi of Tunis. Father-of-four Braham, 45, was an executive at an IT company and the brother of a rabbi, and Saada, 64, was a retired father of two, the paper said.
Cohen died trying to protect shoppers and saved the life of a 3-year-old as he tackled the gunman, The Telegraph reported.
The killings shocked France's 500,000 strong Jewish community — the largest in Europe — and prompted calls from Netanyahu for Jews throughout the continent to immigrate to Israel to ensure their safety amid a rising wave of anti-Semitism.
USA TODAY
France deploys security, but some Jews want to leave
USA TODAY
Paris security tightens amid fears of new attacks
Paris police are searching for a Mini Cooper car registered to Coulibaly's widow, Hayat Boumeddiene, who Turkish officials say is now in Syria.
USA TODAY
Paris terrorist's wife expressed sympathy for al-Qaeda
One of the police officials told the Associated Press that the Paris terror cell consisted of about 10 members and that "five or six could still be at large," but he did not provide their names. Another official said the cell was made up of about eight people and included Boumeddiene.
One of the police officials also said Coulibaly apparently set off a car bomb Thursday in the town of Villejuif, but no one was injured and it did not receive significant media attention.
Some 10,000 security forces are being mobilized to protect the French population against other possible terrorist attacks.
"The threat is still present," said Prime Minister Manuel Valls. He told BFM television on Monday that France is at war against "terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam."
Mourners gather at a Jerusalem cemetery on January 13, 2015 to attend the funeral of four Jews killed in an Islamist attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris last week.(Photo: JACK GUEZ, AFP/Getty Images)
The security forces are being deployed beginning Tuesday at the country's most vulnerable locations, including Jewish schools, said Jean-Yves Le Drian, France's defense minister.
On Friday morning, only hours before his death, Coulibaly told BFM television that he had coordinated his attacks with the Kouachi brothers. He claimed to be a member of Islamic State, the extremist organization that has taken over large parts of Syria and Iraq. Chérif Kouachi, in a separate interview, said the attacks were planned and financed by al-Qaeda in Yemen.
Video has emerged of Coulibaly explaining how the attacks in Paris would unfold. French police want to find the person or persons who shot and posted the video, which was edited after Friday's attacks.
Ties among the three attackers themselves date to at least 2005, when Coulibaly and Chérif Kouachi were jailed together.
The surviving staff of Charlie Hebdo will put out an unprecedented 3 million copies of its upcoming issue, according to the newspaper Liberation. The publication, which loaned out office space to the satirical weekly, said the run will come out Wednesday.
USA TODAY'S Editor at Large/Media Columnist Rem Rieder discusses Charie Hebdo's new magazine cover that came out today and the mag to come out on Wednesday. USA TODAY
Contributing: William M. Welch and Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY, Associated Press
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