“Dad when will you return?” five-year-old Rafael Ben Yiftah asked as he eulogized his father on Friday at the cemetery in Lod.
Oren Ben Yiftah, age 35, along with the two other victims from Thursday’s terror attack in Elad – Yonatan Havakuk, 44, and Boaz Gol, 40 – were buried on Friday. All three men were fathers of families with five or six children, with 16 children now fatherless.
Rafael asked his father “when will you pick me up from kindergarten?” and told him, “I love you,” according to the Walla news site.
Oren’s son Noam, age seven, said, “I already miss you. Why did this happen to you? I don’t believe that you will no longer come to my school. I’m afraid there will be no one to take care of me like you. I promise I will take care of my mother and my sisters.”
His widow Nofar said, “For me, you are still alive. Just yesterday we took photos and sang together... We were together for 12 years and I love you for each one of those days.”
A resident of Lod, Ben Yiftah was a cab driver. Police believe he was killed after he had unwittingly driven the two terrorists into the city.
His wife, Nofar, noticed that his phone was located where the terror attack was taking place, but was unable to contact him – nor could his other family members. For hours, they wondered what had happened until Lod Mayor Yair Revivo came to their home and told them of his death, Ynet reported.
“The smile never left Oren’s face. It was his trademark. When you saw him smile, you smiled too,” explained former Labor MK Yoram Marciano, a relative and part of the Ben Yiftach family, a large and well-established family in the city.
“This is a family rooted in Lod, which had its roots in the city many, many years ago,” Marciano said, according to Ynet. “If you think ‘Lod,’ you think the Ben Yiftach family.”
The family had been going through trying times, with Oren’s older brother and father both dying of heart attacks.
“His mother lost her husband and a child in difficult medical circumstances, and now another child,” Marciano lamented, according to Ynet. “Terrible, horrible.”
Yonatan Havakuk was a resident of Elad. His funeral procession proceeded from there to Yarkonim Cemetery in Petah Tikva where he was buried.
Prior to the funeral, his wife Limor wrote an emotional post on Facebook, explaining, “My heart refuses to believe that I was left alone with five orphans.”
Her husband “fought against the terrorists with great heroism for many minutes... saving many lives,” she said.
“God will avenge your blood, my beloved husband. We miss you very much.”
Havakuk’s brother-in-law told reporters that Yonatan “helped everyone with a smile; the whole city called him ‘brother.’ There is no substitute for this man.”
The murdered man’s friend, Amir Mizrahi, told Walla, “I was his neighbor for 15 years. He was one of the most amazing people I knew.
“He was our mechanic and he always had a smile on his face. He was the first to take me to Uman. His daughters study with mine.”
Mizrahi recounted how his friend was killed.
“From what I understood from my daughters who were there, they were having a meal in their home. He wanted to go call his son, who was at the town square. He went down to look for his son and was murdered.”
The funeral procession of Boaz Gol set out from Elad for Jerusalem’s Har Hamenuhot cemetery, where he was buried.
“His children asked me how they could continue without a father,” his sister-in-law Ronit told KAN. “I told them that he went to bring the Messiah so that there wouldn’t be any more victims.”
Gol’s son explained that he was still processing what had happened.
“Dad went to a Torah lesson and was murdered,” he told KAN, adding, “I still haven’t digested it yet.”
The brother-in-law of Shai Ben Shalom, one of the gravely injured victims, recounted the incident to KAN, noting that he was attacked right in front of his children.
“He took the children to the Elad Amphitheater Park. He turned around and they attacked him with an ax and a hammer. My brother-in-law jumped on them so that the children would run away.”
Due to the traumatic nature of the incident, Elad Mayor Israel Porush told KAN that hundreds of mental healthcare personnel – such as psychologists and social workers – are volunteering to help talk to the children and families.