IDF Locates Pvt. Yaakov Zrihan's 1948 Burial Site at Kiryat Anavim

The IDF's Missing Persons Branch announced Wednesday it had located the burial place of Pvt. Yaakov Zrihan, killed on April 20, 1948 in the Operation Ha'Rel supply convoys to besieged Jerusalem near Sha'ar HaGai, after roughly a 15-year investigation combining document analysis, witness interviews, soil analysis and archaeological surveys. Zrihan made aliyah from Casablanca in December 1947 aboard the immigrant ship Ha'Portzim, enlisted on April 12, 1948, and was assigned as an operational driver to the Etzioni Brigade. He was buried in an unmarked mass grave alongside seven other fallen soldiers at the Kiryat Anavim military cemetery. His sister Yvonne Cohen said the discovery meant the world to her family. A state military ceremony is being planned to mark his grave 78 years after he fell.