Minister Chikli says he and Minister Ofir Sofer had offered to represent the government at the funeral of fallen Lt. Col. Dor Ben Simhon, but the family requested no official presence — a fact he says ran opposite to a Channel 12 report that implied a deliberate no-show.
Minister Amichai Shikli on Saturday evening rejected Channel 12 reports that a government representative failed to attend the funeral of Lt. Col. Dor Ben Simhon, who fell in combat in southern Lebanon. In a Telegram post, Shikli said he and Minister Ofir Sofer had both offered to attend as government representatives but the family declined — a request he called legitimate and respected. He further noted the accident occurred late Thursday night into Friday, around 00:30, well after the wedding the ministers had attended earlier that evening. Shikli accused Channel 12 of deliberate incitement and of exploiting fallen soldiers and their families. The channel has not responded. The Zioneer previously reported on Saturday evening an unverified claim that N12 had misrepresented the government's role at the funeral. The new statement from Shikli adds an on-record account directly from a senior minister, but the original report still stands unretracted.
2 developments
- DevelopingMinister Nir Barkat organizes first-ever collective defamation suit by government ministers against Channel 12
- DevelopingMinister Shikli attacks MK Golan for sitting alongside unrecognized village leaders
- DevelopingCriticism: No Israeli official attended Khamenei's funeral
- DevelopingNoa Kirel eulogizes fallen Lt. Col. Dor Ben Simhon in social media post
Source and signal
A single-sourced dispatch is never rated Confirmed or Strong. Its Signal strengthens only when a second, independent source corroborates it.
- Open-source intake