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April 20, 2006
A final kiss good-bye
By TOVAH LAZAROFF
"Let me kiss her one more time," Menahem Yunis called out as he watched the pallbearers lower his wife Lily’s body into the ground at the Yarkon Cemetery outside Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
Relatives and friends held him back from the grave as he moaned her name.
Lily Yunis, 43, was one of the nine people killed in Monday’s suicide bombing near the old central bus station in Tel Aviv, and among seven who were buried Tuesday.
She had traveled to the city with her family to buy supplies for a new kiosk that her two older sons, Lidor, 24, and Asaf, 22, planned to open in their home town of Oranit.
Lily and her son Zach, 10, had gotten out of the car to buy lunch at the Rosh Ha’ir felafel and shwarma restaurant when the bomb went off. Zach was taken to Ichilov Hospital, where he is recovering from his moderate wounds.
Menahem told mourners that when he finally found her following the explosion, he held her in his arms. "Her eyes rolled, I knew she was gone," he said.
"She was a wonderful mother,‘ Lidor said at the funeral. ’She was our friend. She thought of us first and she helped us with everything."
MK Marina Solodkin (Kadima) said that "on behalf of the government I apologize that we were not able to protect you."
A long-time friend said she still did not believe how their years together had been erased in one fateful moment. She said she could still hear Lily’s voice on the phone saying, "It’s me again."
Lily always said, "In you I have found a good psychologist,‘ recalled her friend. But in truth, she said, it was Lily who was a good listener to her friends, optimistic and principled. She added that she imagined Lily looking around at the mourners shocked and saying, ’I never imagined I was so important."
Cries of "Lily, Lily‘ intermingled with shouts of ’mother, mother" were heard throughout her funeral.
At times, the family seemed to accept her burial. "Father, mother is in heaven and its good for her there," yelled out one of the sons as his mother’s body was being taken to the grave.
But when it came time to bury her, her sons and husband yelled out, "No! no!‘ Menahem offered to do anything if only she would get up from the grave. ’I’ll take everyone to Eilat," he said.
Lily’s daughter Bat-el, 17, called out, "Why isn’t my mother here, why, why‘ and then she added, ’I love you."
As mourners piled flowers on her grave, Menahem was still speaking to Lily as if she were standing there with him.
"See how many flowers they brought you. You always loved flowers,‘ he told her. ’You filled them house with them all the time."
Looking at the cars rushing past the grave, Lidor told her, "You are so close to the street. I will stand here always to protect you."
When mourners urged him to leave the site, he refused. "I’m going to be the last one to go," he insisted.
Luck did not visit Victor Erez twice
The 60-year old cab driver had miraculously been spared death as a young soldier when he survived an explosion at the Erez Crossing at the Gaza border right before the Six Day War.
To thank God for saving him and because he believed it would bring him luck, he changed his last name from Hajaje to Erez, his older brother Banjo told The Jerusalem Post.
But Victor did not fare as well when caught in Monday’s suicide bombing at the Rosh Ha’ir felafel and shwarma restaurant near the old bus station in Tel Aviv. He was among the nine killed in the blast, seven of whom were buried on Tuesday.
Sitting on a stone wall following Erez’s funeral at the Yarkon Cemetery outside Tel Aviv, Hajaje wore a white kippa and a torn blouse. He rubbed his hand across his knee as he spoke of a brother who did everything for his family.
"I brought him up,‘ said Hajaje, who explained that the family had immigrated from Libya in 1948. ’I lost the thing that was most precious to me," said Hajaje.
"After he was wounded in the leg during the first bombing, he slept in my room," recalled Hajaje. When the wound did not heal, the bottom of his leg had to be amputated, he said, adding that the loss of the leg didn’t stop his brother from working as a cab driver for 39 years.
Hajaje explained that it was the second time this year that he had lost one of his seven siblings. His youngest brother died of an illness 10 months ago.
On Monday, shortly after the blast, some relatives had come to visit, and he called Erez to come join them at his house. That’s when Erez’s wife Miri told him, "Victor was in the attack." Hajaje said that until the last moment, when they found his body at the L. Greenberg Institute for Forensic Medicine in Abu Kabir, he had hoped for the best.
Erez, who was a father of four, was expecting his sixth grandchild. Hajaje recalled how he and his brother had spent time together two weeks earlier at the brit of Erez’s fifth grandchild. "He was the tzandak (godfather). He blessed everyone. We sat and we celebrated," Hajaje said.
Hundreds of mourners also said good-bye to Philip Belachson, 45, a father of four, who was buried in his home city of Ashdod. He had gone to Tel Aviv on Monday with his two younger sons, Linor 15, and Uri, 12, to buy CDs and computer games.
Uri told Ynet that when they heard the blast, his father immediately covered him and his brother with his body. "He told me, ’Take the phone, call your mother and tell her there was an attack." Then he fainted. A piece of shrapnel had entered his heart. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
His daughter Lital, 19, said that her father had wanted her to come along as well, but she decided not to.
"He was the best person in the world,‘ she said. ’As he fell on the floor he told my brothers not to worry, I am in pain but don’t worry," she added.
"I had the best father in the world — he was pure, and had never done anything bad to anyone,‘ she said. ’Even in his death he protected his children by absorbing the shrapnel."
Mourners also gathered in the Holon Cemetery to pay their final respects to David Shaulov, 29, a dental technician who had immigrated in 1990 from Uzbekistan.
His wife Varda, who is nine months pregnant with their third child, had gone that morning to Ichilov Hospital because she feared she was experiencing labor pains.
In Lod, friends and family laid to rest Binyamin Hafuta, 47, an immigrant from Morocco, who had worked as a security guard in the restaurant for the last three months.
His metal detector went off while he checked the terrorist’s bag prompting the bomber to detonate the bomb. Hafuta’s body absorbed a large portion of the blast, thereby preventing even greater damage.
His older sister, Rachel Cohen, told Ynet she had asked him if he wasn’t afraid to work there, since it had already been the target of a suicide bombing. Her brother dismissed her fears. "Why would a bomber want to target the same place twice," he asked.
His sister-in-law, Suzi, said that after hearing that Hafuta protected others from the blast with his body, she understood that "even in his death he cared for everyone." She added that he was eagerly anticipating the post-Pessah ritual of Mimouna. A friend of his described Binyamin as trustworthy, happy and full of life, and added that he would be sorely missed.
Hours before the holiday, Marcelle Cohen, 73, of France was buried in Jerusalem. She had come from her home city of Nice to spend the holiday with her youngest son, Menahem Cohen, and his 11 grandchildren.
Ariel Darchi, 31, of Bat Yam, was buried in the Yarkon Cemetery. A small gathering of friends and family members walked seven times around his flag-draped body.
Buda Pirushka, 50, and Rosalia Basnia, 48, foreign workers from Romania, were expected to be returned to their home country for burial.
May. 13, 2006
American teen wounded in Tel Aviv
bombing dies of wounds
By Talya Halkin, Judy Siegel-Itzkovich
Daniel Wultz, the 16-year-old American tourist who was critically wounded in the Pessah suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, died of his wounds on Sunday, the Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital) in Tel Aviv said.
The passing of Wultz brings the death toll in the attack to 11, only two days after another victim, 26-year-old Lior Enidzer, succumbed to extensive wounds suffered in the attack. Enidzer’s death came a mere two weeks after his marriage to his wife Maya.
Wultz is to be flown home for burial on Monday.
He suffered severe blood loss from his wounds and was treated by an experimental drug NovoSeven. He continued to be attached to a respirator, but was able to communicate with his family by batting his eyelids. Even then, however, doctors stressed that his life was still in grave danger. He ultimately lost consciousness again during the past week and suffered multiple organ failure.
Two weeks after the attack, 48 eighth-graders from his Miami school in Weston, Florida, assembled at the Sourasky Medical Center to pray for Wultz’s recovery.
Tuly (Yekutiel) Wultz, who was lightly wounded while seated beside his son at the eatery where the bombing occurred, also spoke to the students. "Unfortunately, I remember everything,‘ he said. ’Daniel was thrown into my hands, and asked me to pick him up. But when I saw the extent of his injuries, I laid him down to wait for an ambulance. I held his hand and told him I loved him, and he told me he loved me."
Daniel’s mother Cheryl was on her way to meet her husband and son when the attack took place, and has been at his bedside ever since. His sister Amanda, a college student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, arrived in Israel with Cheryl’s mother, Margie Cantor, several days later. Additional family members from the US had also arrived to offer their support.
The other victims included Philip Balahsan, 45, from Ashdod, a father of two children who were wounded as well; Victor Erez, 60, from Givatayim; the restaurant’s security guard Binyamin Hafuta, 47, from Lod; Ariel Darhi from Bat Yam; Lili Yunis, 42, from Oranit; David Shmuelov, 28, from Holon; Piroshka Boda, 50, and Rosalia Basalia, 48, both Romanian citizens.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack, which also wounded nearly 70 people. The same restaurant was hit in a suicide attack three months ago, wounding 20 people, one of whom is still hospitalized in serious condition in Ichilov Hospital.
In Memoriam
- Lily Yunis, 43
- Philip Belachson, 45
- Victor Erez, 60
- David Shaulov, 29
- Binyamin Hafuta, 47
- Marcelle Cohen, 73
- Ariel Darchi, 31
- Buda Pirushka, 50
- Rosalia Basnia, 48
- Daniel Wultz, 16
- Lior Enidzer, 26
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