JERUSALEM – Israel yesterday began burying its dead from Monday’s horrific bus bombing, while a terrorist group boasted about the two young “martyrs” who carried out the attack.
Islamic Jihad identified Mohammed Hasenein, 20, and Ashraf Asmar, 19, as the terrorists who drove their bomb-laden car into the Israeli bus – turning it into a fireball – saying the act was “in retaliation for a series of criminal massacres” by Israel.
Israeli investigators said the men packed a jeep with more than 200 pounds of explosives in their hometown of Jenin.
They drove it past roadblocks and security checks to the northern Israeli city of Hadera, where they blew themselves up next to a bus on a road that has been the scene of seven other terror attacks.
The blast ignited the fuel tank and turned the bus into what an eyewitness called “a box of matches.” Two nearby cars were also gutted by the huge blaze.
Only seven of the Israeli victims had been identified by late yesterday, and officials were uncertain if the number of dead was 13 or 14.
“We spent all day collecting flesh and body parts to reconstruct the bodies,” Yehuda Hiss, a forensics expert, said. “We did it for identification and for funerals.”
Among the victims identified yesterday were a 68-year-old woman, a 56-year-old woman and three 20-year-old soldiers. Identification of all the victims may not be completed until Friday, authorities said.
One of the soldiers, Ayman Sharuf, was a member of Israel’s Druze Muslim minority who served as a border cop.
Israeli soldiers, some in tears, joined family members and Druze leaders at Sharuf’s funeral yesterday in the northern city of Usfiyeh.
“You were the most shy but the bravest,” his uncle, Nayim Sharuf, said in a eulogy.
The more than 50 people hospitalized from the blast included 2-year-old Noa Chen, whose father was driving her at Karkur Junction when the explosion occurred.
“I heard her crying, and at first I thought she was just upset by the loud noise,” her father, Nati Chen, told The Post.
“Then I took her in my hands and felt blood streaming from a big hole in her back.”
The girl was rushed to a hospital’s intensive-care unit with liver damage and extensive wounds. She remained in critical condition today.
“But after the surgery, the doctors said she would live,” Chen said.
Noa was among six victims who remained in serious or critical condition. Her brother, 4, was less seriously wounded in the blast.
Probers said a similar attack was thwarted two months ago when Israeli security stopped a jeep packed with more than 1,300 pounds of explosives from reaching the same area. With Post Wire Services