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France attacks: Funeral ceremonies in Paris & Jerusalem

President Hollande awarded the police officers the highest French honour. Photo: AFP
BBC NEWS

Funeral ceremonies are being held for seven of those shot dead in last week's attacks in Paris.

Four men killed at a kosher supermarket are being buried in Jerusalem. At a ceremony in central Paris, President Francois Hollande honoured three police officers shot dead.

Last week's three days of terror began with an attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on 7 January.

A total of 17 people were killed by Islamist gunmen, including journalists.

At the police headquarters in Paris, Mr Hollande posthumously bestowed France's top honour, the Legion d'Honneur, on the three officers - Franck Brinsolaro, Ahmed Merabet and Clarissa Jean-Philippe - their coffins draped in the French flag.

The officers "died so that we may live in freedom", he said at the televised ceremony.

In Jerusalem, the four Jewish victims of an attack on a kosher supermarket - Yoav Hattab, Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen and Francois-Michel Saada - will be buried at the Har HaMenuhot cemetery.

Relatives of Yoav Hattab, a victim of the attack on the Paris kosher supermarket, gather for his funeral near Jerusalem, 13 January 2015
Mourners at the funerals of victims of the supermarket killings gathered in Israel
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The cemetery at Givat Shaul sits on a steep wooded hillside overlooking the main road from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. The psalm which speaks of man lifting his eyes to the hills in search of help or succour feels fitting here.

There is a kind of austere sadness to Jewish graveyards - mourners leave stones on the individual graves as a sign of grief and loss rather than the flowers familiar in the Christian tradition.

The crowds gathered to mourn the four men murdered in Paris are listening to a ceremony which combines the private anguish of the families with public ceremonial.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin are both speaking here, but the private grief will provide the sharpest memories.

A friend of one of the murdered men who travelled from Paris for the funeral said simply: "There is almost too much grief to bear."

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Their bodies arrived before dawn on a flight from France.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is among the hundreds attending the Jerusalem funerals.

He told mourners the victims' lives had been "cut down by hatred".

The victims' relatives will recite a traditional prayer and read eulogies.

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Kosher supermarket victims

From left: Yohan Cohen, Philippe Braham, Yoav Hattab and Francois-Michel Saada
 
  • Yoav Hattab, 21, a student in Paris, was the son of the chief rabbi of Tunis and lost his aunt in a 1985 gun attack on a synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba.
  • Yohan Cohen, 22, worked at the Hypercacher supermarket. Witnesses say both Yohan and Yoav Hattab were shot after seizing a Kalashnikov belonging to Amedy Coulibaly, but the gun was empty.
  • Philippe Braham, 45, worked for an IT company. His children went to a Jewish school in Montrouge, not far from where a policewoman was murdered by Coulibaly.
  • Francois-Michel Saada, 63, was retired with a wife of more than 30 years and two children, both living in Israel.
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Cartoon

This week's edition of Charlie Hebdo is to show a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad - which is said to have prompted the attack by Islamist gunmen.

The cartoon shows the Prophet holding a "Je suis Charlie" sign and the words "All is forgiven".

It has been previewed in numerous other publications internationally.

Last Wednesday, Islamist gunmen raided the magazine's Paris office, killing 12 people.

The latest cover of Charlie Hebdo has been published in advance by French media. Outside France, the Washington Post, Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine, Corriere della Sera in Italy and the UK's Guardian are among publications to show the cartoon.

The slogan in French "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie") was widely used following the attack on the magazine, as people sought to show their support.

Three million copies of Wednesday's edition are being printed. Normally only 60,000 are sold each week.

Charlie Hebdo's lawyer Richard Malka told France Info radio: "We will not give in. The spirit of 'I am Charlie' means the right to blaspheme."

Survivors of the massacre have been working on the magazine from the offices of the French daily newspaper Liberation.

Five of Charlie Hebdo's cartoonists - including the editor - were killed in the attack.

The new edition will be created "only by people from Charlie Hebdo", its financial director, Eric Portheault, told AFP news agency.

Bulgaria arrest

The three days of violence in Paris began after brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi attacked the magazine's office. Witnesses said they shouted "we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad" after the shootings.

The brothers were later killed by French security services after a stand-off north of Paris.

Separately, Amedy Coulibaly - whom investigators have linked to the brothers - had killed the four people at the kosher supermarket in eastern Paris on Friday before police stormed the building.

Coulibaly is also believed to have shot dead a policewoman the day before.

His partner Hayat Boumeddiene is now believed to be in Syria. She has been identified as a suspect by French police, although she left France before the attacks.

In another development, Bulgarian investigators say a Frenchman arrested there on 1 January, Fritz-Joly Joachin, had been in touch with one of the Kouachi brothers.

He was detained while trying to cross into Turkey.

Six people suspected of belonging to a cell behind the Paris attacks are still thought to be at large, French police have told AP news agency.

It quotes police as saying they are searching the Paris region for a Mini Cooper car registered to Boumeddiene.

Newly-released CCTV footage appears to show her arriving at an Istanbul airport in Turkey on 2 January.

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