Two days after a suicide bomber blew himself up in a Karnei Shomron shopping center, killing two Israeli teenagers, nineteen of those wounded in the attack remain hospitalized, two of them with life-threatening injuries.

Hundreds of mourners attended the funeral Sunday of Nehemia Amar, 15, who was killed as he stood in line to buy a pizza at the shopping center on Saturday night. Amar was the third student of the Bnei Chayil Yeshiva in Kedumim to be killed by terrorist violence. Last March, classmates Naftali Lanzkron, 14, and Eliran Rosenberg-Zayat, 15, were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the Neve Yamin gas station as they were waiting for their school bus.

Amar "constantly initiated ideas to be implemented in the class, he always sought to push things forward and progress," Rabbi Yaacov Waldberg, one of his teachers, told the Jerusalem Post. Waldberg said the three deaths of students from the school have affected their classmates, who are having trouble quelling their fears.

Keren Shatzky, 15, was the youngest daughter of Chava and Shabtai Shatzky, who immigrated to Israel from the United States in 1984 and moved to Ginot Shomron in 1986. Keren attended the Lehava Ulpana in Kedumim, and had gone to the mall Saturday night to eat pizza with friends.

"She was one of the nicest people I ever met," said Noa Roitman, a classmate. "She was friendly with everyone and always smiled." Keren is to be buried in the Karnei Shomron cemetery Monday afternoon.

Hospitalized teenagers still in critical condition
For some of the families of the teenagers wounded in the Karnei Shomron blast, the affects of the tragedy are far from over. In the bombing, Rachel Theler, 15, and her brother Liran, 14, were both seriously injured. Rachel is hospitalized at the Schneider Children's Hospital in Petach Tikva, in critical condition, while her brother is in intensive care at Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba.

Janet Theler went back and forth between the two hospitals to visit her injured children. Doctors say their conditions are too serious to allow them to be moved. "Both children really need their mother, and she is trying to divide her time between them," a social worker said. She said that Janet desperately wants to be by her children's sides when they regain consciousness.

Yaffa Hazan, mother of Shira, a 15-year-old friend of Rachel Theler who was also injured in the attack, said that her daughter experienced a great miracle. Yaffa stood next to Shira's hospital bed, holding a small glass jar. In the jar was an iron nail, removed from Shira's heart during an operation that lasted throughout the night.

Classmate Moriah Zamir, from Einav, is unconscious and hospitalized in the next room. In the nearby bed lies Maya Damari, who came to Karnei Shomron for the weekend to celebrate a friend's birthday. As a result of the explosion, a nail embedded itself in Maya's head. "She wasn't afraid," Maya's father said. "She just wanted to be with her friends." Maya's condition is still listed as critical.

Teenagers learn to grow up alongside fear
At the site of Saturday night's bombing, youths from Karnei Shomron gathered on Sunday and lit memorial candles. Some of the youths had been present at the shopping center when the bomb blast occurred. "It will be difficult to come back to here, because the fear that the terrorist will come back is still with us," said Ortal Cohen, a twelfth grader.

"Keren was a classmate," another girl said, quoted in Yediot Aharonot. "You get up one morning and she's gone. It could happen to any of us, because we all spent time in this pizzeria. Why do children of our age have to deal with such awful death?"

"We learned to grow up alongside fear," said Helly Vakil, 18, who works at a coffee shop at the Karnei Shomron shopping center. Vakil, who has lived in the community since she was one-year-old, said the sight of her brother, lying in blood with nails in his hand Saturday night, would not make her leave. "Karnei Shomron is our home. We live here."

© 2001-2002 Koret Communications Ltd. All rights reserved. Terms of Use.