Victims of the Bulgaria bus bombing were buried on Friday, after their bodies
were flown back to Israel by the Israel Air Force.
Childhood friends
Elior Price, who was a 26-year-old student, and Maor Harush, who was a
25-year-old electrician, were buried in a cemetery outside Acre.
Hundreds
of people, including Acre Mayor Shimon Lankari, attended each
funeral.
During the burial ceremony, Harush’s father broke down and
called out toward the coffin, “Put me in your place.”
Harush’s family
members sobbed as the coffin was lowered into the grave. “You didn’t do
anything. They murdered you,” said the victim’s sister.
“You wrote to us
from Burgas [the Bulgarian resort in which the terror attack occurred] saying
that you were having a good time and that you would be back soon,” the sister
said before the coffin was lowered.
“You loved the sea and your friends.
You loved everything you touched,” she added, before breaking down in
tears.
During Price’s funeral, the victim’s sister said, “Don’t worry
about Yaeli, your love. We will protect her and strengthen her.”
Daniel
Fahima, a DJ who was also a childhood friend of the two terror victims, is in
critical condition at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer.
Fahima
does not yet know that his two best friends were murdered in the attack. His
parents said they will notify him only when he regains some
strength.
Kochava Shriki, a 42-year-old woman who was in the first month
of her pregnancy after years of treatment, was buried in Rishon
Lezion.
Shriki’s husband Yitzhak, who was wounded in the terrorist attack
and searched for his wife for hours afterward, only found out she did not
survive the blast after landing back in Israel. He required medical care during
the funeral.
Shriki’s sisters surrounded him and vowed to support him for
the rest of their lives.
“I found her in the end,” a broken Yitzhak said
of his wife during the funeral. “Now I am taking her to her new
home.”
Shriki had telephoned one of her sisters before taking off for
Bulgaria to notify her that she had finally become pregnant.
“You called
to tell me about the baby you were carrying in your womb. You were so happy
then,” the sister said during the funeral.
Earlier, Itzik Colangi and
Amir Menashe, both 28-yearolds from Petah Tikva, were buried.
Colangi’s
brother-in-law said that Itzik was like his name in that he made everyone
laugh.
He said he was more used to giving Itzik birthday wishes and never
imagined that he would eulogize him.
“You innocently left for vacation
and returned in a coffin.
Yesterday in the airport at the state ceremony,
I said to myself that only Itzik could be buried with so much emotion. You were
killed the week that we mark the death of your uncle, for whom you were named,”
said the brother-in-law.
His brother said, “I will never forget you. You
will be eternally with me.” He promised that he and the family would look after
Colangi’s wife Galit and his daughter Noya.
Colangi’s friends and family
than marched his body in the hot sun from the small, round funeral parlor to a
spot on the edge of the cemetery.
After he was buried, his relatives sat
on chairs or kneeled by his grave and spoke to him, as if he was still
there.
His funeral was followed by that of Menashe.
As his body,
wrapped in a prayer shawl, was brought in, his wife called out, “This is a
mistake, a mistake.”
“It is not logical,” she added.
Someone else
called out, “God, enough.”
His sister eulogized him by explaining that he
was always happy.
“I remember the day you were born, your first steps,”
she said.
A friend added, “I won’t erase your number from my phone or
your name from my heart.”
Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.