Parents of 8 killed in crash near Hebron

Daughter critically injured; earlier, 20-year-old killed in Sharon accident.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Published: MARCH 15, 2007 12:27
car crash 88 (photo credit: )
car crash 88
(photo credit: )
Rabbi Avi Cohen-Or, 42, and his wife, Simcha, 38, killed in a traffic collision near Hebron, were laid to rest on a wintry Thursday in the religious seminary in Telem. The couple was killed and their daughter critically injured on Thursday morning after their car collided with a bus at the Beit Anoun junction, south of Hebron. According to the initial police investigation, the victims were traveling northbound on Route 60 en route from Kiryat Arba to Jerusalem when the car swerved into the opposite lane and rammed into an oncoming bus. Police are still uncertain as to what caused the vehicle to swerve. Egged representatives said that the bus driver attempted to swerve to the right to avoid the collision, but that the car hit the bus anyway. Rescue teams pronounced the couple, who had seven other children, dead on the scene after a protracted attempt to remove them from the wreckage. The Cohen-Or's oldest daughter, 15-year-old Gitit, was evacuated to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba by helicopter, where she was hospitalized in very serious condition and on a respirator. An additional two people were also treated at Soroka for light injuries sustained in the collision. Witnesses said that while rescue teams were trying to care for the crash victims, Palestinians threw rocks at the emergency personnel. Cohen-Or was the head of the Netiv Dror Yeshiva, which he founded in 2004 in memory of Col. Dror Weinberg, the Hebron Brigade commander who was killed by terrorists on Worshipers' Way in Hebron. In a second incident hours later, a 29-year-old Herzliya resident was killed when his car overturned into a ditch on Route 65 east of Hadera. Two vehicles that attempted to stop and assist the driver, who was trapped in the vehicle, collided. Two people were lightly injured in the second collision. An MDA team that arrived at the scene pronounced the Herzliya resident dead. Police were investigating what caused the man to lose control of his car.