THE GRIEVING father of the two British sisters who were shot and killed in the West Bank has made a teary tribute to his slain daughters.
Rabbi Leo Dee made an emotional speech at his daughters joint funerals, held in the settlement of Kfar Etzion.
The father began to cry as he thought of his two daughters, Maia, 20, and Rina, 15, whose bodies were placed in front of him and covered in a Star of David.
“Maia and Rina, you two flames have not extinguished,” he cried. More light will enter the world thanks to you.
“You have inspired and loved us, in return we will love you forever.”
Rabbi Leo remembered his younger daughter Rina as a great friend and student, who dreamt of traveling the world.
He continued: “Now you are travelling to heaven.”
Recalling his older daughter Maia, he said: “You will always be an angel and you will always be our guardian angel.”
Rabbi Dee’s wife Lucy remains in hospital after receiving surgery to remove bullets from her neck and spine.
He said: “How will I explain to Lucy what has happened to our two precious gifts?”
When their car was shot up with 22 Kalashnikov bullets, the two sisters, their mother, and they were on their way to the Sea of Galilee for a vacation.
Later, according to police, the car the British family was riding in had been shot with an assault rifle, leaving blood on the windscreen.
Rabbi Dee, who studied in the UK, was travelling ahead of his family in a different car when he became aware that there had been a fight behind him.
He returned to the scene, thinking his family had been hurt in a collision, only to discover that the car had been shot at.
It is believed that the family relocated to Israel in 2005 from London.
Although they moved to Efrat, a Palestinian city close to Bethlehem, they kept close ties to the United Kingdom.
The attack was thought to have been a retaliation strike carried out as tensions rose following police raids on Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque.
The car is thought to have been targeted by gunmen simply because it had Israeli licence plates.
Leo, the father of the girl, was believed to have escaped injury while riding in a car behind his wife and daughters.
Although no one has formally taken credit for the attack, a Hamas spokesman praised it as “retaliation for the crimes committed by Israel.”
According to the Israel Defense Force, the shooting was a terrorist attack, and video from security cameras showed the attackers approaching the victims’ cars.
