Condition of rabbi, son injured in West Bank bomb attack improves

The condition of a rabbi and his teenage son who were both seriously injured in a deadly bombing at a West Bank nature spot has improved and they were set to be moved out of intensive care, a doctor told media Sunday.

Rina Shnerb, her father Eitan, 46, and 19-year-old brother Dvir were all wounded in the explosion at a natural spring outside the Dolev settlement. Rina was pronounced dead from her injuries, while her father and brother were hospitalized in serious condition.

Akiva Nachshon, a doctor in the intensive care unit at the Hadassah Medical Center Ein Kerem, said Sunday that Dvir had improved and was now considered in moderate to good condition.

Eitan, the father, he said, was in good condition.

Both father and son were to be moved from intensive care to the regular surgery ward later in the day, Nachshon said.

The IDF has made several arrests as it hunts for the terrorist cell responsible for the attack, carried out with a remotely detonated explosive device.

Rina Shnerb, 17, who was killed in a terror attack in the West Bank on August 23, 2019 (courtesy)

Eitan and Dvir met Saturday for the first time since the attack. The explosion Friday occurred at the Bubin spring — a popular hiking spot — approximately 10 kilometers east of the city of Modiin.

The rabbi told reporters afterwards that he had “been waiting for [the meeting] the entire Shabbat.” He said the meeting was “emotional” and that his son had told him “he can’t see a world without Rina.”

When the two met, “We both cried. It was after many hours that I didn’t know what was going on with him and I was uncertain, I was really afraid.”

He said his son is “in worse shape [than me] but thank God he’s communicating, he’s entirely with us, remembers everything… he’s strong.”

Of his grief over his daughter’s death, Shnerb said: “We don’t have the privilege of descending too much into despair… We have a tiny 1-year-old girl who is breastfeeding, another 3-year-old and 5-year-old and 9-year-old and 10-year-old and a 12-year-old and a grandson who is almost a year old — these children give us life.

“We need to move forward, we can’t sink. I cry, yes, but afterwards I realize we have to move on… I’m very practical, I understand there is grief, there is pain, there is a shiva [mourning period]… but we want to move forward.”

Father and son were unable to attend Rina’s funeral Friday because of their wounds, but Eitan addressed the ceremony by phone saying that “we are trying to be strong here in the Land of Israel, the people of Israel, Rina believed in that.”

“Our response to the murderers is that we are here and we are strong and we will prevail.”

Israeli medical teams and security forces and gather at the site where a bomb exploded in a terror attack near the Israeli settlement of Dolev in the West Bank on August 23, 2019, killing a teenage Israeli girl and seriously injuring her father and brother (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP)

Israeli security forces reportedly arrested three Palestinian men in the West Bank early Saturday as they searched for the terrorists behind the bombing attack.

According to Palestinian media reports, Israeli soldiers arrested two of the men during raids in the village of Ein Arik. The third man was said to be a resident of the nearby village of Ein Qiniya.

It was not clear what their connection to the bombing was.

An improvised explosive device was used in the deadly attack, the IDF said. Police sappers determined that the bomb had been planted earlier at the spring and was triggered remotely when the family approached.