Netanyahu: Rabin Murder 'One of the Worst Crimes'

The murder of former premier Yitzhak Rabin by a rightwing extremist was "one of the worst crimes," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday as Israel marked the 17th anniversary of his assassination.

"The murder of Yitzhak Rabin was one of the worst crimes of the new age," Netanyahu told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting, who held a minute's silence to mark the anniversary of his murder by a Jewish extremist who opposed his concessions to the Palestinians on November 4, 1995.

"It certainly besmirches the annals of the state and of Zionism," he said.

"This murder also obliges us to safeguard Israel's democracy, to defend freedom of speech and to strongly reject all displays of violence," he said.

Top Israeli officials including Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres were to attend the annual Rabin memorial ceremony at the Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem at 1300 GMT.

On Saturday night, around 30,000 people gathered to mark the anniversary in the Tel Aviv square where Rabin was gunned down by Yigal Amir as he left a peace rally.

In Israel, the date of Rabin's assassination is marked according to the Hebrew calendar.

The general-turned-peacemaker inspired both admiration and hatred for signing the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, and a year later, he was jointly awarded the Nobel peace prize with Peres and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.