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June 18, 2003
Murder of seven-year-old girl wracks family, community
By David Rudge
Noam Leibovitch was singing a song she had performed at her cousin's bar-mitzva as the family traveled home from the festivities in Jerusalem to the Yemin Orde educational community on Mount Carmel, south of Haifa, on Tuesday night.
Her father Shlomo, who was driving, had decided to take a shortcut along the Trans Israel Highway so they would return in time to take part in rehearsals for a graduation ceremony that was to be held at the youth village on Wednesday.
They had just reached the intersection near Kibbutz Eyal, and were preparing to leave the highway so they could take Noam's grandparents to Netanya, when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire from close range on the vehicle.
The bullets riddled the car and shattered the windows, killing Noam, seriously wounding her younger sister Shiva, aged three, and lightly wounding her elder brother and her grandfather, Shmuel Aviad.
"From the first burst of fire, I was hit by splinters and was covered in blood. I couldn't tell from where it came. Then I shouted to my son-in-law, who was driving, go faster," Aviad said Wednesday. "He put on speed and then they fired from behind us, at the children and all of us. We travelled for one or two kilometers until we finished the TransIsrael highway and then all the (emergency) vehicles came, including the ambulances, but it was too late.
"This degenerate fired indiscriminately just in order to kill... I ask why. Where does the world stand? It is for no reason. Where is the legitimacy? Only to kill, just because we are Jews. I ask again, why?"
Aviad and his grandson were treated at the scene and then taken to hospital along with Shira. Efforts to resuscitate Noam were made in vain, and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Shira's was badly wounded, and a bullet lodged near her spine. She is being treated in the Schneider Childrens' hospital. The bullet was removed from her back without adverse effects and doctors say the flow of blood in her injured right arm had resumed, raising hopes that she would make a full recovery.
She remained in the hospital yesterday as her elder brother and sister and her parents, Shlomo and Galit, and grandparents, took part in the funeral for Noam, with whom she had been very close.
Shlomo is deputy director of the Yemin Order educational center that since 1953 has been absorbing teenage Jews from around the world, many of whom have immigrated without their families, as well as helping needy children of veteran Israelis.
Apart from the graduation ceremony, the youth village had been scheduled on Wednesday to inaugurate the "Beit Florence" remedial center for terrorism victims and their families. For many years, the community, situated on a hilltop in the midst of forests overlooking the Mediterranean, has provided a haven and place for recuperation for terrorism victims and relatives.
It started in 1982 when the community, run on the lines of a religious kibbutz, opened its doors to youngsters from Kiryat Shmona suffering from the effects of repeated Katyusha rocket attacks. The community decided to allocate three buildings in the heart of the village, to accommodate terrorism victims and their families. It was this center that was to have been officially opened on Wednesday but the inauguration, together with the planned graduation ceremony, was postponed because of the tragedy.
"This is a family dedicated to the education of Jewish children from all over the world. Shlomo and Galit are excellent educators, totally selfless people whose main aim has been to help others," Yemin Orde director Dr. Chaim Peri told The Jerusalem Post. "We have a whole community of young people, some of whom have been traumatized by past experiences, and now this has opened their wounds," he said.
The youth village, named after late British General Orde Wingate, has a reputation for educational excellence. Many graduates of the community, including immigrants from Ethiopia, the former Soviet Union, and North and South America, have gone on to become officers in the IDF. Many more have become business entrepreneurs. Peri said Leibovitch had been a senior teacher at a Jewish school in Phoenix, Arizona, before coming to Yemin Orde three years ago to hold take the position of deputy director.
For the teenagers at the community, the killing of Noam was was often seen on playground with her younger sister Shira, was a harsh blow. For her closest friends, it was even worse. Adi Levy, aged eight, spoke about her friend Noam. "She really liked to go to the playground with her younger sister. We played a lot of games together, sometimes with dolls," Adi told reporters on Wednesday.
"When I woke up in the morning, I heard that she had been killed by (Palestinian) terrorists in her father's car. I saw the car and her young sister in hospital and I really cried.
"I really believe that it will be better for her up there in paradise, but I will miss her terribly," said Adi.
Hundreds of people took part in Noam's funeral Wednesday at Kibbutz Nir Etzion, near Yemin Orde.
In Memoriam
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