Widely acclaimed Israeli aerospace scientist Avi Har-Even, 85, a recipient of the Israel Security Award, senior researcher at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and former director of the Israel Space Agency, is dead.
Har-Even succumbed to critical injuries he suffered last month when rioting Arabs torched the Effendi Hotel where he was staying in the ancient, mixed city of Acco. The hotel was badly damaged. Har-Even was hospitalized in critical condition, sedated and on a ventilator.
On Sunday June 6, he succumbed to his extensive wounds.
Makor Rishon journalist and Akko resident Yair Krauss told an interviewer Sunday evening on the Kol Barama radio station, “In the last hour another Jew has died who was fatally wounded in the riots that have taken place in the city in recent weeks.
“There is an attempt to return to the routine,” Krauss said, “but there are constant riots by Arabs against Jews.” Jewish gangs also went hunting for Arab targets during that nightmarish week that left dead and wounded Israelis, both Arab and Jewish, in its wake.
Since 2008, Har-Even served as a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University. Until hate-filled rioters ended his career for good, that is.
May his blood be avenged.