Hundreds turn out for funerals of Sarona Market victims
Mila Mishayev, Michael Feige, Ilana Naveh laid to rest Friday, a day after Ido Ben Ari buried
More than 600 people attended the funeral on Friday afternoon of Mila Mishayev, one of the four victims of the Sarona Market terror attack on Wednesday in central Tel Aviv.
Many among the attendees were residents of her hometown of Ashkelon who did not personally know her but turned out in solidarity. Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) was also at the funeral.
Mishayev, 32, from Rishon Lezion, was set to be married in the near future and was waiting at the Max Brenner cafe at Sarona for her fiancé when the attack took place. She was hit by bullets in her lower body and later died of her injuries.
Ashkelon Mayor Itamar Shimoni spoke at the funeral, telling mourners that the victim had managed to contact her fiancé to tell him she had been shot.
“We found out that Mila was supposed to marry her boyfriend in a few months, and even managed to call him and tell him she was hurt in the attack. Sadly, she did not survive the grave injury she sustained,” he said.
Mishayev is said to have bled to death from a wound to the leg.
“Facing the dreadful photos from the attack we are left in shock and grief. How can human beings so easily take the lives of other human beings, innocents, whose only ‘sin’ was being Jewish? My heart goes out to you, the Mishayev family, parents Zvi and Ritza, brothers Phoenix and Alex and sister Natali. All of Ashkelon grieves and hurts with you and it is hard to contain the great disaster that befell us,” said Shimoni.
Another of the four victims, Ben Gurion University professor Michael Feige, 58, from Ramat Gan, was buried at the cemetery in Rehovot on Friday afternoon.
Earlier Friday, hundreds of people turned out at Yarkon cemetery in Petah Tikva for the funeral of Ilana Naveh.
“I wanted to believe that when they took me to the hospital it would be okay,” said Shiran Naveh, one of 39-year-old Naveh’s four daughters, the Ynet news website reported. “They told me in the morning [that you had died], but it didn’t surprise me, I already knew that night. I wanted them to wake me from this nightmare, tell me that it didn’t really happen, but it’s not a dream, it’s real.”
She continued: “Give me the strength to fill your massive shoes. I promise to do it in the best way possible. Watch over us, mom, we love you very much.”
MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni, who performed Naveh’s marriage ceremony, also delivered a eulogy.
“Seventeen years ago I stood with you under your chuppah [Jewish wedding canopy], I blessed your marriage, and who would have thought I would have to mourn you,” he said.
Naveh’s funeral came hours after the High Court overnight rejected a police request to perform an autopsy on her body, which her family had objected on religious grounds.
Warning: Graphic footage
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Police had argued that it was not immediately clear if Naveh had been killed by gunfire in the Sarona Market terror attack, with media reports suggesting she may have died of a heart attack at the scene.
The family’s attorney told Israeli TV that they wanted to hasten the burial to allow time for the traditional shiva mourning period. Under Jewish law, the seven days of mourning are cut short in the event of a major Jewish holiday. With the Shavuot holiday on Sunday, the family will have just one day to observe the traditional grieving period, and were therefore pushing for the funeral to be held as soon as possible, he said.
“Here is a moment of comfort in this terrible tragedy,” a relative of Naveh’s told Channel 2, hailing the court decision.
The fourth Israeli killed in the Tel Aviv attack, Ido Ben Ari, was buried on Thursday.
The two gunmen, cousins who came from the Palestinian town of Yatta in the southern West Bank, were caught shortly after the terror attack.
Since last October, 33 Israelis and four others have been killed and hundreds more injured in the spate of attacks, though the violence had dramatically waned of late.
Some 200 Palestinians have also been killed, some two-thirds of them while carrying out attacks and the rest in clashes with troops, Israeli officials say.
