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July 9, 2003
'Why was this holy woman taken?'
By Daniel Ben-Tal
Mazal Afari, 65, of Moshav Kfar Yavetz who was killed when a suicide terrorist blew himself up inside her family home Monday evening, was laid to rest in a solemn ceremony at the Tel Mond Regional Cemetery yesterday.
The blast reverberated throughout this quiet, religious agricultural community in the Sharon area, less than two kilometers from the seam line that separates Israel from the territories.
Afari was sitting on a couch in the living room of house number 18 when the suicide bomber entered through a rear door. For reasons not yet apparent, he detonated his explosive belt in the kitchen.
According to police sources, this caused a gas tank to explode, bringing down the ceiling and collapsing the house's roof and concrete support pillars. Afari was crushed in the rubble.
Neighbors who arrived first on the scene picked furiously through the debris with their bare hands by flashlight in a desperate search for survivors.
Three frightened grandchildren were extracted by neighbors from a downstairs apartment and rushed to Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba where they are said to be in satisfactory condition.
Afari's husband Moshe - a former head of the Lev Hasharon local council - was in the moshav's nearby synagogue with a son at the time of the blast. They rushed back to find that their house had imploded, and watched helplessly as Zaka disaster victim identification volunteers stretchered out the body, wrapped in black plastic.
"I'm frightened," said Michal Lotan, a mother of two children from neighboring Moshav Ein Vered yesterday.
"It could easily have been us. Anyone can walk through the surrounding groves into the villages around here. If there were a fence separating us from the territories, this would not have happened," she said.
Yemen-born Afari was the mother of eight children - four boys and four girls - and had many grandchildren.
Residents of Kfar Yavetz spoke of a pious, charitable, family-oriented woman who was renowned for her hospitality and ran the community's elderly people's club.
Many used the term eshet hayil - a woman of valor.
Shlomo Levi, a close friend and neighbor, eulogized in a breaking voice: "Mazal is a victim for all the residents of the moshav. I have no doubt that a hard negotiation took place in heaven - one victim or many?... The terrorist intended to attack the synagogue, but was disoriented and counted four houses from the wrong end of the street... What pain! My heart is full of childhood memories. We have lost an active member of our community - and the elderly people's club is orphaned."
"Mazal was a righteous woman," said Eliezer Avtavi, a family friend for over 40 years. "She was an early riser - a dedicated wife, mother and grandmother."
"Why was this holy woman taken?" cried one mourner.
Labor and Social Affairs Minister Zevulun Orlev, a veteran family acquaintance, represented the government at the funeral.
"Mazal - may the Lord avenge her blood - was murdered by a cowardly Palestinian," he said. "She was a pillar of this community: religious Zionism at its best... The whole of Israel is crying with the family... We are a peace-seeking people, but for three years Palestinian terrorists have been attacking our women, children and elderly. They want to throw us back to where we came from - but we come from here...
"The road map is becoming a blood map. Mazal is one more example of why Israel cannot rely on the promises of murderous groups. The safety of Jews must be in the hands of the IDF." Three generations of the Afari family hugged each other for support as the body was lowered into its final resting place.
"Mother - where are you going?" cried one son, as relatives shoveled earth over the fresh grave.
In Memoriam
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