Mourners at the funeral of Lianna Sharabi and her daughters Noya and Yahel Photo: Heathcliff O'Malley
The last words Ayelet heard Markels A text came from her best friend Noya Sharabi at 10 a.m. on Oct. 7.
“They're outside and I'm scared,” it read.
Next time she'll see 16. Two-year-old Noya, whom she described as more of a family member than a friend, lay in a coffin.
“She wasn’t a sister, she was my sister,” the devastated teenager said. said.
On Wednesday afternoon, Noya, her younger sister Yahel, 13, and their mother Lianna, 48, were buried in a cemetery in Kfar HaRif, killed in the Hamas massacre at Kibbutz Be'eri.
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Ayelet, 16, and her school friend Noam Kalifa, 17, joined hundreds of mourners as three coffins, draped in Israeli flags, were lowered into the ground.
Both adult men and girls teenagers. faces clutched in pain.
Before Hamas killed 1,400 Israelis nearly three weeks ago, the dusty cemetery just over 30 km (18.6 miles) from the Gaza border was modest, hidden behind a pomegranate a garden with only a few people left. graves.
Now this place has become the final resting place for many people killed by Hamas terrorists.
Buckets of fresh pink and red roses were brought to the cemetery to be scattered over the graves of the women, and colorful wreaths lay on the ground, ready to be placed on the ground under which they will lie.
The family moved to Israel from Bristol. Photo: Heathcliff O'Malley
During the service, Ayelet and Noam held onto a black-and-white image of Noya they had commissioned from a street artist in Eilat as their bodies heaved with grief and their tears seemed endless.
Ayelet's father, Ami, shared Noya's latest WhatsApp message to The Telegraph recounts the horrific terror that swept through their community on October 7.
The Markels lived near Beeri and were close friends of the Ayelet and Noya family, whom he saw as his own daughter . , always spent the night at each other's houses.
«It was just luck that Ayelet didn't go there on Friday night,» he said.
Despite Be'eri's proximity to the Gaza Strip border, he did not worry about his daughter's safety when she visited the kibbutz (which was often), due to the procedures put in place by the Israeli government to protect its citizens.
«It was safer than in the city because the army protected us, there was a fence as a barrier and [an] iron dome to protect against missiles,» said Mr. Markels, 45.
Hundreds of people gathered in Kfar HaRif for the family's funeral on Wednesday. Photo: Heathcliff O'Malley
«But now we know that the government deceived us because we thought we were safe but no one was there when we needed them.»
Two weeks before the Hamas attacks, Ayelet and Noya attended a concert together, where they interacted with boys their own age. When the young people asked where they were from, Noya rushed to Beeri's defense, claiming that it was a safe place to live and that their settlement was like «one big family.»
«Now she is killed,» Ayelet said , unable to hold back her tears. “That conversation jumped out at me because I just thought how right they were, that there was a lot of danger there. But Noya was not afraid. She was brave.”
During the funeral, which was conducted in Hebrew and English, friends of the Sharabi women spoke of how loved they were around the world.
The eulogy for Lianne's brother, Steve, read by a family friend, recounts fond childhood memories and long phone conversations they shared while his sister walked her dog Mocha.
Her father, Pete, recalled how his daughter originally left Bristol for Be'erie, initially for only three months, but there she met Eli, with whom she settled and started a family.
One of Lianna's closest friends, who spoke at the funeral, said: «The land of Israel is enveloping today you and your girls. Rest in peace.»
In one eulogy read to Yahel, the girl is remembered for riding her bike quickly around the kibbutz, being an avid scuba diver and loving all animals, big and small. She also loved space and spent many hours using the telescope she received for her birthday.
It was only in July that she celebrated her bat mitzvah, which her sister happily helped organize.
> < img src="/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/79d698448d97da3397dc36c287284690.jpg" />Noya, 16, her younger sister Yahel, 13, and their mother Lianna died at Kibbutz Be'eri. Photo: Heathcliff O'Malley.
Her surviving friends and family wonder what she might have grown up to be. . Maybe a veterinarian or «the first Israeli woman in space.»
Now they will never know.
Coldplay's «Fix you» played from the speakers as the coffins were carried to their final resting places
As for Noam, she wants justice and is still trying to understand how Hamas terrorists could commit such atrocities.
“No 16-year-old girl deserves to die,” she said she. . “She should have been alive. Not to be killed in her home just because she is Jewish. This is just stupid!”
As the funeral ended and friends and family members slowly left the cemetery, only the teenagers remained.
Ayelet and Noam: They grieve not only for Noya, but also for other killed students from their school, which was destroyed during Hamas killings.
“Our school was once a happy place, but now it is destroyed,” Ayelet said. . «I don't know how we'll recover from this.»
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