Israel Matzav

A Muslim married to a Jew

I thought it rather odd yesterday when I heard that several Arab MK's showed up at Fatima Slutsker's funeral in Sderot yesterday. Slutsker was killed in the Kassam attack yesterday morning, and the likes of Ahmad Tibi and Taleb a-Sana (MK's from Arab parties) don't usually care enough about Israeli terror victims to show up at their funerals. But Fatima Slutsker was different: Fatima Slutsker was a Muslim who was married to a Jew:

At 7:18 a.m. on Wednesday morning, six Kassam rockets slammed into Sderot, killing Fatima Slutsker, 57, and seriously wounding Maor Peretz, 24, a security guard for Defense Minister Amir Peretz.

Slutsker was a Muslim woman who came from the Caucasus Mountains in the Former Soviet Union just three years ago with her Jewish husband.

An eyewitness in a store nearby said she had crossed the road seconds before the rocket landed, and had been waiting for her husband, who was still on the other side of the street.

The next part of this article is not for the squeamish, but it's part of our daily reality here:

Avichai Yosef and Benny Libranti from Zaka, the rescue organization that rushes to the scene after terrorist attacks, described the bloody scene as looking like a suicide bombing on a bus.

They said it took hours to gather body parts, which were scattered in a 50-meter, and bones and legs were found on the top of the trees and on car windshields.

Slutsker was laid to rest in the non-Jewish section of the Sderot cemetery on Wednesday afternoon. Of the approximately 150 people that attended her funeral, only 60 of Sderot's 20,000 residents showed up. Most of the others were members of the media.

Residents said that they were afraid to leave their homes to go to the cemetery, which is in the closest part of town to the Gaza Strip.

But a delegation of Moslem Knesset members showed up to pay their respects as Slutsker was laid to rest.

Another day of reality in Sderot....

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:27 AM