(JNi.media) Israeli citizen Shmuel Benalal, 58, from Tzur Hadassah, was among the 20 victims killed by Islamist gunmen in Mali’s capital of Bamako on Friday. Two Al Qaida groups—Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and El Mourabitoune—claimed responsibility for the bloody attack and siege. Benalal is survived by his wife and three children. His family told Walla: “We are shocked and grieving. We hope that all the relevant parties are working with all the means at their disposal to bring him to us as soon as possible.”
Benalal, a faculty member of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership, was the president of Telos Group Ltd., a consulting company that specializes in the international development of education. He had more than twenty years of experience in international development projects of the World Bank, the European Union, USAID, DFID, UNESCO and UNICEF and as a consultant to Jewish communities around the world.
His areas of professional involvement included planning, decentralization, management, institutional development and educational leadership training. He served as a senior consultant to governments in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia. In this framework Benalal wrote guidebooks on educational planning, development of schools, the integration of parent committees into education, and planning for the integration of special needs populations in education. Previously, he was involved in the development of Jewish education outside Israel, served as principal of the Tarbut School in Mexico and served as an academic advisor and wrote curriculum at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He was a graduate of the Mandel Jerusalem Fellows at the Mandel Leadership Institute and has directed short term training programs at the Institute. Benalal held an MA in Jewish philosophy from the Hebrew University. He was member of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, was certified by the Israel Association of Coaching as a master coach and was a research fellow at the Institute of Education in London.
Relatives of Benalal said on Saturday that his body had been identified by a Mali government minister who worked with him. Israel’s Foreign Ministry reported that another Israeli who was in the hotel had been rescued.
As many as 12 gunmen entered the Radisson Blu hotel on Friday morning, shooting their way in their vehicle that carried diplomatic license plates through a security barrier, according to media reports. They held up 170 guests, from France, Turkey, the US, Israel and China and staff at the hotel. A few hours later, security forces moved in and began battling the gunmen. Mali TV reported 80 hostages escaped, later the hotel’s owners, the Rezidor group, announced that 125 guests and 13 staff were still inside. According to AP, about 40 French special police forces were taking part in the fighting, alongside US and Malian special forces. Also, UN “quick-reaction” forces were deployed. France maintains a force of about 1,000 troops in Mali. Most of the hotel guests and staff were freed by the special forces attack which ended the siege.