PM joins thousands for Beersheba ceremony in Israel

THOUSANDS of pilgrims join Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu to commemorate Anzacs in Beersheba.

PM Malcolm Turnbull talks to 82-year-old Avon Moffatt, dressed in WWI uniform. Picture: AAP Image

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, have joined thousands of pilgrims from Australia and New Zealand to commemorate soldiers who fought and died in the Beersheba cavalry charge.

The pair joined a moving service at the Beersheba War Cemetery, where the soldiers who fell on that day in 1917 are buried.

The battle, which ended with the capture of Beersheba from Ottoman forces with the loss of 31 soldiers killed and 36 wounded, opened the Turkish flank enabling Allied forces to advance into Palestine.

More than 700 Turks were taken prisoner.

AUSSIE LARRIKIN’S STOLEN BEERSHEBA FLAG RE-EMERGES 100 YEARS ON

MEMBERS OF THE AUSTRALIAN LIGHT HORSE UNIT COMMEMORATE BATTLE

Mr Netanyahu said that when he joined the Israeli Special Forces almost 50 years ago he had been given a broad brimmed “Australian hat”.

“It was very good to shield ourselves from the sun,” he said. “We also sat next to eucalyptus trees that came from Australia and we learned about the courage of Australian and New Zealand soldiers.

“We talked about it. We drank it in. It stood as a shining example for us. It was an example of the spirit of fortitude and courage and the willingness to act in the defence of our people and our values.”

He said Israel would never forget them. In a speech marred by a joke about a horse called “Bill the bastard”, Mr Turnbull said the campaign had been fought in a land were “every place was a household name”.

He said the memory of the men who fought would never fade. “The tradition of man and horse is part of us. It’s part of Australia. It always will be,” Mr Turnbull said.

“They spurred their horses through that fire, those mad Australians, through that fire and took the town of Beersheba, secured the victory that did not create the State of Israel, but enabled its creation.”

Earlier the service heard from New Zealand Major General Peter Kelly, who said Beersheba was only one example of the Anzac brotherhood in arms “personified by Corporal Herbert Douglas, a motion picture show operator from Melbourne, who died of wounds received at Beersheba serving in the Canterbury Mounted Rifles”.

After an address from the Governor-General of New Zealand Patsy Reddy, Rabbi Dovid Gutnick from Melbourne, who is the Australian Army’s only Jewish Chaplain, read Psalm 23 “the Lord is my shepherd” which appropriately speaks of the “walk through the valley of the shadow of death”.

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