Eight funerals Friday for students murdered by Palestinian terrorist at Jerusalem’s Yeshivat Harav Thursday night
Yohai Livshitz, 18, and Neria Cohen, 15 from Jerusalem
Yonatan Yitzhak Eldar, 16, from Shilo
Yonadav Haim Hirschfeld, 19, from Kohav Hashahar
Segev Peniel Avihail, 15, from Neve Daniel
Avraham David Moses, 16, from Efrat
Ro’i Roth, 18, from Elkana
Maharta Taruno, 26, from Ashdod
Many thousands gathered at the yeshiva from all parts of Israel heard the eulogies and the readings of Psalms for the eight victims.
Seven of the wounded students in the shooting rampage are still in hospital, three in serious condition. Two were hurt when they jumped from the second floor window of the yeshiva library to escape the massacre. The Jerusalem police have recovered the vehicle used by the killer, Ala Abu Dhaim, 20, a Jerusalem Palestinian with Israeli citizenship who lived in the southern village of Jebal Makaber and worked as a delivery-man. He used it to drive to the Jerusalem yeshiva Thursday night, March 6, with his Kalashnikov assault rifle and other weapons. It contained a large stock of ammo. His family set up a mourning tent and raised Hamas and Hizballah flags. Hamas praised the killings as “heroic.”
Security forces and emergency services are on national terror alert across the country for more terror. The West Bank is under closure. The security services and police are hunting the planners of the attack on one of Jerusalem’s largest yeshiva centers after imposing a blackout on the investigation. Hundreds of students attended the secondary school section and the seminary.
Police are on guard for the tension in Jerusalem sparking angry clashes between Jews and Arabs.
The Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert condemned the outrage but pledged not to derail “the peace process.”
The UN Security Council emergency session broke up Thursday after Libya blocked a resolution condemning the terrorist attack by demanding that Israel’s operation in the Gaza Strip be added. The US delegate refused, backed by Russia.
The Lebanese Hizballah’s TV station interrupted its broadcasts on the night of the attack to name the perpetrators as the “Imad Mughniyeh Liberators of Galilee.”