KFAR ETZION, West Bank, April 9 (Portal) – The family of two Israeli sisters killed in a shooting attack in the occupied West Bank held tearful obituaries on Sunday with a room full of weeping mourners while their wounded mother was left in a coma.
Maia and Rina Dee, 20 and 15, who were also British citizens, died on Friday when a suspected Palestinian gunman shot their car. Israeli forces are still trying to track down the attacker.
The sisters’ father, Leo, broke down in tears as he addressed the crowd gathered in the Jewish settlement of Kfar Etzion for the funeral.
He recalled the Passover now celebrated and the story of the biblical exodus of the Jews from Egyptian slavery to freedom.
“The journey to salvation is a slow one—three steps forward and two steps back. And Maia and Rina, with your loss, our world has taken two steps backwards,” he said, stretching out an arm towards their lying bodies wrapped in fabric. “You inspired us, you loved us, and we will love you forever.”
Her sister Keren complained that she could not protect her younger sister.
“I would do anything to be in your place in the car,” she said.
After a year of escalating Israeli-Palestinian violence, tensions are particularly high as Ramadan and Passover coincide. Hours after the sisters’ deaths, an Italian tourist was killed in a ramming attack in Tel Aviv.
The attacks increased Israeli-Palestinian tensions following Israeli police raids on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque last week.
At least 18 Israelis and foreigners have been killed in attacks in Israel, around Jerusalem and the West Bank since the beginning of the year. During the same period, Israeli forces have killed more than 80 Palestinians, most of them fighters in militant groups but some of them civilians.
Reporting by Ilan Rosenberg, Dedi Hayoun and Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Philippa Fletcher
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