Latest victim hailed a hero
A young mother has been mourning her childhood sweetheart at a packed Shiva house this week, devastated by his murder at their local supermarket.
A young mother has been mourning her childhood sweetheart at a packed Shiva house this week, devastated by his murder at their local supermarket.
The latest Israeli killed by terrorists, Tuvia Yanai Weissman, 21, was shopping with his wife Yael when two terrorists attacked a shopper in another aisle.
“They were together in the dairy aisle when they heard screams, and he ran to help,” Yael’s father Yossi Levi-Campus told The AJN. The terrorists attacked Weissman, and he died from his wounds. “In his death he was worrying for others,” Levi-Campus said. “He was a hero.”
The Weissmans only married two years ago, and had their first child, Netta, four months ago. Weissman was in the army, but at the time of the attack was off duty.
The family was living in the West Bank settlement of Maale Michmas. “They knew each other from nursery [school] here, and from the age of 15 they were boyfriend and girlfriend,” said Levi-Campus, adding that he feels like he “lost a son”.
The attack took place last Thursday after two Palestinians took knives into the Rami Levy supermarket in Sha’ar Binyamin in the West Bank, one of the few places where Israelis and Palestinians shop together. The attackers were both 14-year-old boys. They were stopped when another shopper shot them, and have been arrested along with a suspected accomplice.
Following Weissman’s death, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot has ordered that even when on leave. all soldiers must carry their firearms with them.
Yael struggled to keep tears at bay and deliver a eulogy at the funeral last Friday. She spoke of their love for each other, their many plans for a future together, and said that her husband’s rush to respond to screaming in the supermarket despite being unarmed epitomised his character.
Israeli authorities have informed the families of the two stabbers, who live near Ramallah, that their homes are to be demolished, in line with a government policy intended to discourage terrorism.
As of press time, the boys were still being treated in Israeli hospitals. In other incidents, there were three attempted stabbings of Israeli security forces in the West Bank on Sunday, and on Saturday by Jerusalem’s Old City there was an attempted stabbing of a border police officer.
The previous day a Palestinian attacker inflicted a head injury on a soldier by stabbing him, and in the West Bank, an attacker tried to run over Israeli soldiers.
NATHAN JEFFAY
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