Thousands attend funeral of three family members killed in Palestinian stabbing attack

Thousands attended the funeral of three members of a family killed in a Palestinian stabbing attack.

Yosef Salomon, 70, and his children Chaya Salomon, 46, and Elad Salomon, 36, were buried on Sunday afternoon at the cemetery in the central Israel city of Modiin.

Yosef Salomon’s wife, Tovah, 68, who was seriously injured in the attack, was allowed to leave the hospital for the funeral. Several of the mourners carried large Israeli flags throughout the funeral, according to reports. Some 10,000 mourners were expected to attend the funeral.

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The three were killed and one injured when Palestinian attacker Omar al-Abed, 19, from the nearby Palestinian village of Kobar, entered the home and began stabbing the family members, who had gathered at the Salomon home to celebrate the birth of a baby to another of the senior Salomon’s sons.

Michal Solomon, the wife of Elad, who ran with the children to the safety of an upstairs room which she locked and then called security services, in a eulogy called him the “perfect husband” and her best friend. “Now you are not here for me and it scares me,” she said. “In the last two days I have received so much strength from people I don’t know. You don’t know how much you have helped me,” she also said.

“Only someone with no remnant of humanity could raise their hand against Yossi and his family. Yossi that made everyone he came across happy. The Salomon family household was based on making other people happy,” the rabbi of Halamish, Yonatan Glass, said in a statement read on his behalf.

The mayor of the city of Elad, home to Elad Salomon and his family, vowed to double and triple the size of the city located on the seam between central Israel and the West Bank.