Three more victims of the Lydda Airport massacre–all women–were identified today. The name of one was withheld because her husband is still abroad and has not been notified. The other two were identified as Mrs. Sprinza Riegel, 22, the mother of two small children, and Mrs. Luna Sabba, 02, from Canada.
Mrs. Riegel, whose death brought to seven the number of Israeli victims, was waiting at the airport for her husband who was due in on a flight from Rumania. Mrs. Sabba’s daughter, Simone, 19 was slightly wounded. Her husband, Abraham, a Montreal textile executive who immigrated to Canada from Morocco, is flying to Israel to attend his wife’s funeral.
Meanwhile, two more victims of the tragedy left the hospital today after doctors decided there was no need for further medical treatment. There are still 65 persons in four hospitals, most of them in Tel Hashomer. The number of those in critical condition was reduced by four this evening. The others are severely injured but out of immediate danger.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE DEAD, THE AGONY OF THE LIVING
Many other victims, dead and wounded, were waiting behind the customs barrier to greet arriving relatives when the bustling passenger terminal was suddenly turned into a charnel house. Adam Zamir, an 18-year-old high school senior, the son of Polish immigrants who settled in Israel in the 1950s, was waiting with his parents to greet an aunt he had never seen. He fell dead in front of them from a bullet that crashed through the glass divider separating the visitors from the customs area.
Mrs. Henia Ratner (identified yesterday as Tartner) of Eilat, the mother of three daughters, was waiting for her husband who was returning from a business trip abroad on behalf of his employers, the Timna copper mine. Mrs. Aviva Oslander, of Tel Aviv, mother of a 20-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son, was waiting for her husband who was arriving from West Germany where he owes a public relations firm. Both were killed instantly by machinegun fire.
Possibly crippled for life was Antonia Zecharya, 26, a Rumanian-born El Al stewardess. She was standing at the air crew customs station when bullets and grenade fragments ripped through her legs. The flight she had just completed was to be her last; Miss Zecharya was leaving the airline to marry a lieutenant in the Israel Navy. They were to have announced their engagement officially last night. This morning her fiance was at her bedside when she regained consciousness in a Tel Aviv hospital. Her legs were severely injured and doctors said they may have to amputate.
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