Twenty-two years ago Rabbi Eliezer Weiss lost his wife Rachel and their three young sons in a brutal terrorist attack. The four burned to death in a bus targeted in a firebomb attack.
On Sunday morning, Rabbi Weiss learned that his children’s murderers are expected to go free in a mass terrorist release. The government is planning to free over 100 terrorists, several of them murderers, in a “gesture” to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
A neighbor of Rabbi Weiss, Efraim Holtzberg, recalled the rabbi’s reaction to the news. “He told me he doesn’t understand why the state of Israel invests millions in searching for Nazi criminals around the world,” he told Arutz Sheva.
“Why does the Weisenthal Center track down Nazis who murdered Jews, while here we have Muslim Nazis who murdered Jews, who spilled blood as if it were water, who burned a mother and three children and an unborn baby alive – and they are released? Is there a difference between them and the Nazis criminals?” he asked, quoting Rabbi Weiss.
Holtzberg burst into tears as he recalled the funeral for Rachel Weiss and her children. The four were killed when terrorists hurled a firebomb at a bus full of civilians, setting it on fire.
Three-year-old Netanel and 2-year-old Rafael tried to escape the flames by hiding under a bus seat. Their mother stayed with them rather than escape alone.
“The three children hid under the benches. She was nine months pregnant. The brave soldier David Delarosa grabbed Rachel Weiss’ hand and told her to leave the burning bus.
“Rachel told the soldier that she knew the bus would burn, but a mother doesn’t leave her children. And so she rose in flames to heaven with the children,” Holtzberg related.
“I cried more at her funeral than at my father’s funeral,” he recalled. “What was left of her? Ashes.”