Two children were born: Dahlia now 45 and a lawyer and Yuval 40 a computer software promoter

Two children were born: Dahlia, now 45 and a lawyer, and Yuval, 40, a computer software promoter. There are three grandchildren.Leah, according to her official biography issued by the government, which appears short on things to say about her, was "of great moral support to her husband in his military career of 27 years". In his memoirs, her husband recalls that she joined the Palmach battalion of which he was deputy commander in 1945 and later finished her studies as a teacher. They met when, as a 16-year-old, she joined Palmach, the main armed force of the Jewish underground army, and married him four years later. Born Leah Schlossberg in Konigsberg, Germany, in 1928, she emigrated to Palestine with her parents and sister in 1933. Mrs Rabin said: "My husband regarded you as his partner in peace," adding that the Israeli people "were insisting on carrying on the peace process".It is all more high-profile than Leah Rabin's usual back seat in the years of her marriage to Yitzhak Rabin.

Late on Thursday evening Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the PLO, arrived at her Tel Aviv house - his first ever visit to Israel - to express his condolences. Mrs Rabin, however, remains a menacing figure for Likud, like Queen Margaret in Richard III, a visible reminder of past crimes.She has also started to play a second role as a symbol of the policy of peace with the Palestinians. But Shimon Peres, the acting prime minister, decided against a snap election which would have been fought, in part, over responsibility for the death of Mr Rabin. By waiting until next year, Mr Peres eased the pressure on the right wing. Yesterday they were still lighting candles in the rain beside his grave on Mount Herzl.For a moment, Leah Rabin's attack on Mr Netanyahu seemed like the opening shots of an onslaught on Likud for its alliance with the religious right, which in turn produced the assassin.

The resulting scandal forced her husband to resign as prime minister.But within hours of the assassination she had become the wife of a martyr Crowds filed past Mr Rabin's coffin outside the Knesset. Last year she lost a brooch during the signing ceremony for the treaty between Israel and Jordan and got a squad of soldiers to search for it. This reinforced her image as somebody lacking the common touch, which has been difficult to eradicate since she was discovered in 1977 to have kept an illegal bank account in Washington. He expressed understanding for the grieving widow.Mrs Rabin had never played a role separate from her husband in Israeli politics. In so far as Israelis thought about her at all, she was seen as something of a snob. Mr Netanyahu, famed for his suavity but looking a little rattled, was quick to stress the ceaseless battle he had waged against the excesses of the far right in his party.

There will be no Israel after this peace agreement." In repeated television interviews she pointed the finger at Mr Netanyahu. She recalled the meeting he addressed in Jerusalem last month when Mr Rabin was portrayed in Nazi uniform. "If you ever heard their speeches at the Knesset (Parliament) you would understand what I mean They were very, very violent in their expressions They said we are selling the country down the drain. "It's too late," she said to him, meaning it was too late for regrets or apologies The next day she spelt out the reason for her anger "Yes, surely I blame them," she said. In the television pictures you can just detect the hesitation before her hand goes forward to shake that of Binyamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud party, at the funeral of her husband, Yitzhak Rabin.