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Jun. 28, 2004
Sderot buries its dead
Tovah Lazaroff
Kneeling, his face buried in the flowers and dirt covering the body of his 4-year old son, Itzhik Ohayon said, "just tell me good night.‘ As friends and relatives led the father away sobbing, he said, ’I just wanted him to tell me goodnight Abba."
As mourners shoveled dirt onto the body in the cemetery in Sderot, he stood sobbing along with the other relatives."It wasn’t his time to die, I would have gone instead of him."
Afik Zahavi, 4, was killed on Monday morning along with Mordechai Yosefov, 49, when the first of four Kassam rockets landed in Sderot, on the street in front of his nursery school.
The blast knocked him and his mother Ruth Zehavi down as they were on their way to nursery school. Witnesses said Afik lay on top of his mother in the street as they waited for the ambulances. Ruth Zehavi is in serious condition in Bersheeba’s Soroka Hospital.
Yosefov, 49, had just dropped his cousin’s children off at both the Lilach nursery school and the Yasmine Kindergarten and was sitting on a bench when the rocket struck.
The two were buried Monday evening in back to back ceremonies in Sderot that drew hundreds. Many cried in despair over the bodies. In a city that has seen scores of rockets fall damaging windows or building, but never causing fatalities, residents have a fatalistic attitude toward the weapons.
"What can you do," they ask, shrugging their shoulders. But they acknowledge that this rocket, which killed two, has made them more nervous.
Speaking at Yosefov’s funeral, a rabbi said, "Each time a home was hit and not a person, we said, ’it’s a miracle, God is watching over us.’ But today, what can we say?‘ said the Rabbi. He added, ’we are praying before you to continue to do miracles and to bring us peace."
As he stood before the small body wrapped in blue felt, lying on an orange stretcher, Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal said,"I’ve had many hard days since becoming mayor, but this is the hardest.
"What can I tell you, little boy," said Moyal. A boy leaves home and goes to school and instead of returning home, is buried in cemetery at the end of the day.
"You didn’t know anything of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. You didn’t know anything about war or peace. You were pure, but we have neighbors, little boy, who are animals, murders that kill little children age 4. We will not forget, we will not forgive. He doesn’t even know that you exist.‘ Earlier in the day, Itzik told Israel Radio, said that after he heard about the rocket he saw his son’s nursery school in the news. ’I had butterflies in my stomach," he said. It was only when he got to the hospital that he heard of his son’s death.
He had visited his son only last Friday, as was his weekly tradition. He also tried to see him during the week, as he and the boy’s mother live apart. Often he would take him with him to wash his car, because Afik loved the car wash and always wanted to stay in the car as the water and sponges ran over it.
Last Friday Afik said, "Abba, I have an invitation for you for Tuesday, we have a party in our nursery."
Now the nursery is unlikely to hold the party, which would have celebrated the end of the school year this week. Instead, exhausted staff members wondered how they would explain to the children an event they themselves have yet to comprehend.
Itzik Ohayon on Monday lashed out at the Prime Minister and Israeli politicians for failing to protect his son. Sharon at least has a security guards to watch over him. "But who is guarding our children, they have no one to watch over them."
After the funeral almost a hundred relatives and friends gathered in the home of Yosefov, who immigrated from the former Soviet Union in 1993. They sat under a large tent listening to speeches about him. Yosefov left behind a wife, two children and five grandchildren.
Speaking at the funeral, Moyal pledged to Yosefov’s family and friends, "no Palestinian nation and no enemy will move us from this place because this is our place and here we will stay forever."
In Memoriam
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