Arab Terror Claims Victims from a Variety of Backgrounds

A series of Palestinian terror attacks that killed 13 people in a 24-hour span this week did not differentiate among its victims.

Among the dead from Sunday’s attacks were Jews, Arabs and foreign nationals.

Shimon Menachem had dropped off his 22-year-old daughter, Marlene, at Meron Junction as usual Sunday morning so she could catch the bus to Safed, where she worked in a clothing store.

She never made it onto the bus, which exploded in a suicide attack as it pulled up to her stop.

Shimon Menachem had already returned home to Moshav Safsousa when the family learned of the attack. The family tried in vain to reach Marlene on her cell phone.

“We looked in all the hospitals. We knew she was at the station at the time of the attack. We found her bag next to the bus, and only in the evening did they call her father” to come to identify the body, said Marlene’s uncle.

A relative, Shlomi Maman, was on his way to his army base. He was seriously wounded in the bombing.

“We are tired of crying, tired of mourning, tired of the troubles,” the rabbi of the moshav, Rabbi Eliahu Kadosh, said during Marlene’s funeral Sunday night.

Menachem is survived by her parents and three siblings.

At another home in the Moshav, the Alkabetz family was mourning the death in the same attack of Adelina Kononen, 37, who had long served as a care-giver for the family’s elderly parents.

Kononen, who was from the Philippines, arrived in Israel six years ago and had worked with the family since then.

She was returning from a weekend off when she was killed in the bus bombing. Also killed in the attack was a friend, Rebecca Roga, 40, also from the Philippines, who likewise worked for a family on the moshav.

Kononen “had a heart of gold,” said Moti Alkabetz. “She was a member of the family. For six years, she took care of my parents, was very attached to our family. We loved her dedication and charm. In my mother’s refrigerator there is still food she cooked for Shabbat.”

Kononen is survived by two children in the Philippines.

“She wanted to take care of her children’s future. She was so happy when she came back several months ago from a vacation to the Philippines. She told me she had purchased her two children a home,” Alkabetz said.

Maysoun Amin Hassan, 19, from the Druse village of Sajour, was looking forward to starting her studies in psychology at Haifa University this fall.

Family members said she was bright and loved to learn.

On Sunday morning, Maysoun accompanied her older sister Jihan to an admissions exam for Safed’s regional college.

Maysoun was seriously wounded in the bus attack and later died of her injuries. Jihan was moderately wounded.

Family members were unable to tell Jihan that her sister had been killed.

“I heard about the explosion, and I knew the girls were on the bus,” said their father, Amin. “I can’t believe it has come to us.”

Maysoun is survived by her parents and six siblings.

Avi and Avital Wolansky were returning to their home late Sunday night following a weekend at her parents home in Tekuma. Palestinian gunmen opened fire on their car as they were traveling on a West Bank road to their home in the settlement of Eli.

Both Avi, 29, and Avital, 27 and pregnant, were killed.

Their 3-year-old son, Yigal, was seriously wounded. Their 8-month-old son, Nadav, who was also in the car, was unharmed.

The couple had lived in Eli since they married about four years ago.

Avi, who was born in Jerusalem, was studying at a Jerusalem yeshiva.

Avital had studied at Bar-Ilan University and taught in Eli and another settlement, Shilo.

Avi’s brother Yair said his family was still shocked by the deaths.

In an interview with the Yediot Achronot newspaper, he said he was sure the surviving family would take care of the orphaned children.