Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated minutes after he joined in singing the Song of Peace at a rally in Tel Aviv (video snippet - NBC News)
Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated moments after this scene in Tel Aviv (video snippet)

This Day In History: Yitzhak Rabin Assassinated, Changing Israel Forever

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The Judean Staff
This Day In Israel's History
A Nation United for Peace, and Shattered by a Bullet. November 4, 1995, The Assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin

Thirty years ago tonight, on November 4, 1995, the streets of Tel Aviv pulsed with hope. Over 100,000 Israelis, families, students, soldiers, and dreamers, crowded into what was at the time called Kings of Israel Square, waving signs and singing songs of peace. At the heart of the gathering stood Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a war hero turned statesman, who had gambled his legacy on the belief that peace with the Palestinians was not only possible, but essential.

Moments later, as Rabin descended the steps from the stage, the music of “Shir LaShalom” (Song of Peace) still echoing in the air, three shots cracked through the night. The man who had once commanded the IDF to victory in 1967 collapsed into the arms of his guards. Within an hour, the hope of a generation bled out on the floor of Ichilov Hospital. Israel had changed forever.

The Assassin and His Motive

The killer was Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old far-right law student and religious extremist who believed Rabin’s peace efforts were treasonous. Enraged by the Oslo Accords, which ceded parts of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza to Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Amir convinced himself that Rabin’s death was divinely sanctioned to “save Israel.”

He had already plotted multiple failed attempts with his brother and friends before finally succeeding that fateful night.

Amir fired two bullets, one piercing Rabin’s aorta, another shattering his spleen and lodging in his spine. As agents rushed him into his armored car, a dazed Rabin muttered his final words:

“It’s nothing… just my back hurts.”
Minutes later, he lost consciousness. By 11:00 p.m., Israel’s television networks announced the unthinkable: Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was dead.

Amir was sentenced to life imprisonment plus fourteen years, a sentence that still stands as Israel’s stark reminder of how ideology, when twisted by hate, can destroy even a democracy’s brightest light.

The Oslo Gamble and Rabin’s Vision

Rabin’s political resurrection in 1992 had been driven by one mission: to end the decades-long conflict through diplomacy. The Oslo Accords, signed on the White House lawn in 1993 alongside Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat, were supposed to pave the road toward a two-state solution by May 1999.

For Rabin, who had once been a hardened general, Oslo was more than policy, it was repentance through leadership. “We must fight terrorism as if there is no peace, and pursue peace as if there is no terrorism,” he famously declared. His transformation from warrior to peacemaker earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, shared with Peres and Arafat.

The Soldier Who Became a Symbol

Before his fateful peace crusade, Rabin’s name was etched into Israel’s very foundation.

  • As IDF Chief of Staff during the Six-Day War (1967), he orchestrated Israel’s lightning victory, reclaiming Jerusalem and cementing Israel’s military might.

  • During his first term as prime minister (1974–1977), he oversaw Operation Entebbe, one of the most daring rescue missions in history, ordering the liberation of hostages held by terrorists in Uganda.

  • He helped rebuild a shaken army after the Yom Kippur War and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for his leadership.

Rabin was not a man of rhetoric, but of resolve, his life’s arc stretching from the trenches of the Palmach to the podium of the Nobel ceremony.

Legacy and the Echoes of That Night

The plaza where he was killed, Kings of Israel Square, was renamed Rabin Square, and every November 4th, Israelis gather under flickering candlelight to remember the night the music stopped. To some, Rabin remains a martyr of peace; to others, a cautionary tale of trust betrayed. But to all, his murder marked the end of a certain Israeli innocence, the realization that even within the Jewish homeland, the greatest threat could come from within.

His assassination didn’t just silence a leader. It fractured a nation.

And yet, Rabin’s own words, sung moments before his death, still haunt and inspire:

“Don’t say the day will come, bring the day.”

Thirty years later, that plea for peace continues to echo through a land still searching for it.

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The Judean is a digital media platform committed to exposing the truth about Israel and confronting the global wave of anti-Zionist disinformation. Through powerful editorials, featured articles, and historical investigations, we bring clarity to Israel’s story — its ancient Jewish roots, modern democratic values, and ongoing struggle for truth in the media battlefield. At a time when propaganda threatens to rewrite history and vilify Jewish self-determination, The Judean stands as a proud voice of resistance. We exist not to appease, but to assert: Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people — and that truth is non-negotiable.
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