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Victims of the Beer Sheva attacks: Tamara Butershvili, 65; Aviel Atash, 3; Denize Hadad, 40; and Karin Malka, 23. (clockwise from upper left)
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| By Ellis Shuman September 1, 2004 |
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Eighteen Israelis remained hospitalized this morning, two of them in serious condition, after yesterday's double suicide bombing attack on buses in the southern Israeli city of Beer Sheva, in which 16 Israelis were murdered and more than 100 people were injured. A city resident gave up his seat on a bus to an older woman; she was killed and his life was spared. One of the drivers saved lives by quickly opening the bus doors.
Pathologists at the Abu Kabir Forensics Institutes are struggling to identify the bodies of the 16 victims. The names of some of the victims of the attacks, all residents of Beer Sheva, were released for publication Wednesday morning:
 Karin Malka, 23
Tamara Butershvili, 70
Aviel Atash, 3
Emanuel Yossef, 28
Denise Hadad, 40
Shoshana Amos, 50
Takala Tiluayint, 33
Roza Lehman, 45
Maria Sokolov, 58
Larissa Gormanenko, 48
Vitali Brotski, 52
Eliahu Uzan, 58
Roman Sokolovski
Nissim Vaknin, who was lightly injured in yesterday's attacks, said that when he boarded the bus it was quite crowded, and there was only one seat available - the one just behind the driver. Vaknin didn't know it at the time, but he was sitting right next to one of the suicide bombers. A woman boarded the bus, and Vaknin rose to offer her his seat. Vaknin moved to the back of the bus, and moments later, the suicide bomber detonated his explosives.
The woman who received Vaknin's seat after his gentlemanly gesture was Tamara Butershvili, who regularly traveled on the bus to do her shopping. She lost her life immediately in the blast.
"If I hadn't gotten up, maybe she would still be alive," Vaknin told Army Radio this morning. "I feel like I killed her personally," he sighed tearfully.
Malka, who worked at the absorption center in Beer Sheva, was described by friends as someone who "always had a smile on her face." She was on her way to work when she lost her life on the number 6 bus that was attacked. She will be buried this evening in the city's cemetery.
Takala, an Ethiopian mother of six, became the Beer Sheva absorption center's first terror victim. She had not yet finished her studies of Hebrew.
Yossef's brother found it hard to accept that his brother had been murdered, "because he never hated anyone and never rejoiced when someone else was killed. This is something I can't say about the Palestinians, who took to the streets to celebrate the murder of 16 Jews that were traveling peacefully on Beer Sheva buses," he said, quoted by Maariv.
Being hailed as somewhat of a hero is Yaakov Cohen, the driver of the number 12 bus, the second bus that was attacked on Tuesday. After hearing the explosion on the first bus, Cohen opened the doors on his bus, allowing many passengers to get off and escape serious injury.
"I opened the doors, the people asked me to, and I did it immediately. The first blast was on bus 6, and then about 15 seconds afterwards there was an explosion on my bus. I didn't see anyone suspicious. It came just out of the blue," he said.
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