Thirty-three people wounded in the bus bombing at the Burgas airport
in Bulgaria on Wednesday landed in Israel at 2:30 on Thursday afternoon
at Ben-Gurion airport and were immediately transferred by ambulance to
area hospitals. The majority of the victims that returned on Thursday
were lightly injured though four were injured seriously or critically.
The terror attack targeting Israeli tourists
killed at least seven people in the city of Burgas, soon after a
charter plane, Air Bulgaria flight 392 arrived from Ben-Gurion Airport.
The seven included five Israelis, the bus driver and the suicide bomber,
according to the Foreign Ministry.
A second Israel Air Force
plane carrying three people seriously wounded in the attack set out from
Bulgaria for Israel on Thursday evening.
The plane was expected to land in Israel on Thursday night, after which
the three seriously wounded people will be transferred to Israeli
hospitals for continued treatment.
The coffins of the five Israelis killed in the attack were also
scheduled to arrive in Israel Thursday night when a brief IDF ceremony
will be held.
Brigadier-General (Brig.-Gen.) Dr. Itzik Kreiss commended the Bulgarian
medical services for fully cooperating with Israeli doctors. He also
credited the hospitals with saving the lives of some of the victims.
“It’s
not always nice to be Israeli, but this is a country that knows, within
24 hours, how to bring back all of her wounded and injured from every
place in the world, it makes it a little easier,” said Kreiss.
Kreiss,
who accompanied the flight from Bulgaria, said the injuries were
consistent with other bus bombings, including broken limbs, cuts, burns,
and multiple injuries. Kreiss added that he did not see any children
under the age of 18 but could not confirm there were no children
injured. Kreiss said that some of the people were in a good mental state
and some were less good. “Unfortunately, it’s the same mental state as
we have seen in many instances that this has happened here,” he said.
The wounded were sent to ten different
hospitals: Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba; Wolfson
Medical Center in Holon; Emek Medical Center in Afula; Tel Aviv Sourasky
Medical Center; the Western Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya; the
Rambam Medical Center in Haifa; the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center in
Tzrifin; the Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot; the Barzilai Medical
Center in Ashkelon; and the Laniado Hospital in Netanya.
The
medical core on Thursday morning sent some 30 officers and soldiers
comprising surgeons, trauma experts and anesthesiologist to treat the
wounded and prep for their return to Israel.
The rest of the some 150 passengers on the
ill fated Air Bulgaria plane who were targeted when they arrived in
Burgas will be able to fly home on a civilian airliner. It is expected
that most of those uninjured, who flew to Bulgaria on that flight, will
opt to come home.
The airport in Burgas was closed to regular
aircraft, though the Bulgarian authorities were allowing whatever
Israeli aircraft was needed to fly in and out of the facility.