The terrorist rocket attack on Petach Tikvah Wednesday night claimed two more victims today, both elderly ill women. Zehava Chodorov, 69 and Carolina Lazar, 70, died of injuries they sustained when a Katyusha rocket scored a direct hit on their ward in the Beth Rivka Hospital, an institution for the chronically ill. The other victims, who were killed instantly, were Anat Darbashi, five whose home was struck by 5 rocket and Esther Vitas, 71, a patient at Beth Rivka. The search for the perpetrators is continuing.
Security forces announced the arrests of several persons suspected of having aided the terrorists in carrying their equipment to within range of Petach Tikvah. On Friday helicopters spotted the rocket launcher less than a mile east of the Green Line the boundary between Israeli territory and the occupied West Bank. Two local Arab boys who approached the launcher were wounded by the explosion of booby traps set by the terrorists. Israeli security forces inspecting the launching site found evidence that the terrorists had camped there for some time and had made a meal. Israeli authorities are convinced that they could not have carried out the attack without aid from nearby villagers. All villages east of the Green Line have been under curfew since Thursday, though not Arab villages on the Israeli side of the line. The residents of several of the latter have sent condolences to the mayor of Petach Tikvah over the tragedy.
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