Mourners collapse in grief as child is buried

Hodaya Asaraf, a 13-year-old girl on her way to school, was the first of the four children killed in yesterday's suicide bombing in Jerusalem to be buried.

When they carried her body in, draped with a velvet cloth bearing the Star of David, the sight was too much for some of the mourners to bear.

Several of the women shrieked in horror, one collapsed on to the floor screaming in rage and grief, and the funeral had to be stopped so she could be consoled.

Hodaya was the youngest child in the family. "She had a very close relationship with her mother, that's what will make it so hard for her mother to bear," a friend who asked not be named said at the funeral.

Among the mourners were her school friends, many of them crying, and girls from Ezra, an Israeli youth association of which Hodaya was a member.

Between the prayers and formal eulogies, her uncle spoke briefly, and angrily blamed Israel's politicians, saying they were bickering with each other while his niece was killed. "Some one fell asleep when they were on watch," he said.