Peretz, Meir

Meir was born in Moshav Gadish in the Jezreel Valley on June 20, 1961. His family immigrated to Israel from Morocco in 1956. Meir trained himself to be a car mechanic, and in October 1978 Meir enlisted in the IDF and served in the Ordnance Corps. On May 22, 1980, after completing a vacation at home, Meir returned to his base in the south of the country and took a bus on the Tel Aviv-Be’er Sheva road near Kibbutz Beit Kama. The bus swung to the side of the road and crashed into a truck. Some of the passengers were injured in the accident. Meir was critically wounded and transferred to the hospital, where he fought for his life for a week and died on 19 May 1980. He was 19 years old at the time of his death He was laid to rest in the military cemetery in Afula, where Meir left behind his parents, three brothers and three sisters.