Leah Rabin, "A courageous and devoted woman"
Leah Rabin, the widow of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, has died in an Israeli hospital. She was 72 years old. Mrs Rabin had been suffering from lung cancer. Mr Rabin was killed in 1995 by a right-wing Jew opposed to his policy of handing over land for peace. After his death, Mrs Rabin became a much more public figure, campaigning for the peace process.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, said that all of Israel was in mourning for Mrs Rabin, who he described as a courageous and strong woman. "Since (Yitzhak Rabin's) assassination five years ago, Leah held the torch of his legacy and brought his voice loud and clear to us Israelis and to the whole world," Mr Barak said. He called Mrs Rabin a courageous and devoted woman who worked together with her husband for two generations to bring Israel into a secure situation and in recent years to bring peace to the Middle East.
Ehud Barak was speaking en route to Washington for talks with US President Bill Clinton on ending six weeks of Israeli-Palestinian violence that so alarmed Mrs Rabin that she personally intervened to try to stop it despite her illness. It was only after a public appeal by Mrs Rabin that Mr Barak dropped his opposition to convening a meeting 10 days ago between former Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. The talks ended with a truce that failed to take hold. More than 200 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in the violence.
Mr Peres, whose relations with Yitzhak Rabin were frequently stormy, said after Mrs Rabin's death that "even in her sorrow, she was undeterred from following in the great path" of the assassinated leader. Mrs Rabin had criticised Mr Barak for turning away from the peacemaking trail blazed by her husband after the prime minister failed to reach a final peace agreement with Mr Arafat at the Camp David summit hosted by Clinton last July.
She once told a German news magazine that Mr Arafat, whose surprise condolence call to the Rabin home in Tel Aviv after her husband's death was his first public visit to Israel, had become like "a part of my family".
Mrs Rabin had been suffering from lung cancer and receiving treatment for heart problems. Dan Oppenheim, a doctor at the Rabin Medical Centre near Tel Aviv where Mrs Rabin was hospitalised, said that her family was with her when she died. Although Jewish ritual law calls for almost immediate burial after a death, Israeli government officials said it was likely Mrs Rabin's funeral would be held only on Wednesday, to give foreign dignitaries the opportunity to attend.
