As husband is buried, woman wounded in drive-by attack wakes up
Chava Mark in stable condition after being revived from medically induced coma; injured daughter attends funeral of Rabbi Miki Mark
As her husband, Rabbi Miki Mark, was laid to rest in Jerusalem Sunday afternoon, Chava Mark, who was seriously wounded in the drive-by shooting that killed him, came to for the first time since the terror attack.
Doctors at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem neighborhood said Chava Mark, an Israeli who also holds American citizenship, was brought out of a medically induced coma and resumed breathing independently. The hospital described her condition as stable.
Suspected Palestinian terrorists opened fire on four members of the Mark family as they drove on Route 60, south of the West Bank city of Hebron. The gunfire caused the car to spin out of control and overturn.
Miki Mark was killed in the attack. Two of their 10 children, 14-year-old Tehila and 15-year-old Pedaya, were also injured. Pedaya was lightly injured and not hospitalized.
Tehila, who sustained moderate injuries in the shooting, was allowed to leave the hospital by ambulance to attend her father’s burial at the Har Hamenuhot cemetery in Jerusalem.
A relative read her eulogy.
“I saw you in your last moments,” she wrote. “When I heard the gunshots, I ducked down, but you never left the wheel. You didn’t protect yourself — until your last breath, you tried to save us. I never imagined that this would be our last moments with you.”
“We will we strong for you, because I know that’s what you would want. God took you because he needs more righteous people. Watch over us from above.”
Earlier, Mark’s children silenced mourners at the funeral who shouted for “revenge.”
“Whoever wants to scream nonsense should leave,” one of them said, according to Channel 2. “This wasn’t what Abba [father] wanted. We are focusing on his memory and on doing good. He had Arab friends.”
Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, a cousin of Rabbi Miki Mark, eulogized his slain relative at the funeral.
“I pledge in the name of all of my colleagues in the security establishment that together we will continue to do everything to keep the State of Israel unified and safe from threats,” he said.
“Be at peace, man of peace,” Cohen added. “I loved you dearly, as you did us.”
Earlier in the day, thousands of mourners attended a funeral ceremony for the rabbi at the yeshiva he directed in the West Bank settlement of Otniel.
President Reuven Rivlin, a distant relative of Rabbi Mark, hailed him as a “righteous and and modest man who gave of his own even when he knew it couldn’t be repaid.”
Mark’s son Netanel also praised his father’s values in a eulogy delivered at the seminary.
“Dad was a righteous man. You were entirely righteous, you gave so much,” he said. “Look at the family you raised, a great achievement. How can I speak of you in the past tense?”
“He wasn’t just our father, he was a father to so many people,” one of Mark’s daughters said in a video eulogy earlier Sunday in which she exhorted people to attend her father’s funeral.
“Everyone will hear something good about what Dad was,” another daughter said, “and take that goodness and be better people.”
An initial investigation indicated the terrorists passed the Marks’ car with their vehicle near the settlement of Beit Hagai, south of Hebron, then opened fire at them. Officials said over 20 bullet holes were found in the car.
On Saturday, the IDF arrested several suspects in the Hebron area as part of the hunt for those responsible for the attack, which was the second deadly assault in the area in as many days.
