World Jewish News
Two Israeli victims of Brussels shooting to be buried as Belgian police continue search for gunman
27.05.2014, Anti-Semitism The two Israeli victims of the deadly attack at the Brussels Jewish Museum will be buried Tuesday in the Kiryat Shaul Cemetery in Tel Aviv.
The bodies of Emanuel and Miriam Riva, 54 and 53, from Tel Aviv were flown Monday to Israel for the funeral.
According to Israeli media, the couple had worked in the past for Nativ, an organization that encourages immigration to Israel from the former Soviet Union. Four years ago, they were sent by the Foreign Ministry to work in Germany. They are survived by their daughters Shira, 17, and Ayelet, 15.
The two other victims of Saturday’s attack included a French woman, 23, who was working as a volunteer at the museum and a museum employee.
A gunman entered the museum Saturday afternoon and began shooting.
Police are continuing their search for the gunman.
The Belgian federal prosecutor's office Monday said a probe had been opened into "terrorist assassination".
A spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, Wenke Roggen, told a press conference that the investigation now underway was for "terrorist assassination" and "attempted terrorist assassination" on top of an inquiry already opened over the shooting attack.
Police analysis of images from the surveillance cameras at the museum show "a man killing in cold blood with great determination," Roggen said. The gunman wore a cap and sunglasses, walked into the museum entrance, remove a Kalashnikov-style automatic rifle from a bag and then shoot through a door before making an exit.
"These facts combined with the fact that the shooting lasted less than a minute and a half leads us to think there may be a terrorist motive," she told a news conference.
The prosecutor's spokesperson refused to confirm or deny reports that a camera was strapped to one of the two bags he was carrying, enabling him to film the attack in the same way as did Mohamed Merah, the radical Islamist Frenchman who shot dead four Jews, including three children, in a Jewish school in Toulouse in March 2012.
Belgian daily newspaper La Derniere Heure on Monday quoted a source close to the inquiry as saying: "We fear a new Merah.’’
The Jewish Museum of Belgium didn’t reopen on Tuesday as it was announced initially.
A condolences register was opened online for the victims of the shooting.
‘’We have witnessed a great mark of solidarity and we received support messages from across the world,’’ the museum said.
On Sunday, 2,000 people, including several Belgian government ministers, rallied in silence in front of the museum in central Brussels in memory of the victims of the shooting.
The Israeli media has quoted Gosia Porat, a relative of Mira and Emanuel Riva, saying she warned them not to travel to Belgium.
"I told them that the security situation for Jews there is awful," Porat said.
The Rivas had planned their trip to Brussels several weeks ago.
The President of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, Joel Rubinfeld, said he would file a judicial complaint after having received death threats on the association's facebook.
‘’There is today a worrying climate and the passage to the act is likely,’’ he said.
by Yossi Lempkowicz
EJP
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