Belgium has refused to grant emergency aid to the children of Mira and Emmanuel Riva, the Israeli couple killed in the terrorist attack on the Jewish Museum of Brussels in May 2014, the Belgian media reported.

The couple's children, Shira and Ayelet Riva, who live in Tel Aviv, asked for a financial assistance of 15,000 euros from the Commission for Aid to Victims of Intentional Acts of Violence.

The orphans' lawyer, who made the request more than ten months after the attack, said that the Commission do not now consider that the two children, aged 15 and 16 years old at the time of the attack, might indeed have been, at that time, in a genuine emergency position. It said there was no “urgent need.” Urgent need is defined as a request in the first six months following an attack.

But the lawyer explained that it took 10 to 11 months to file the petition, it is not because young girls were not in financial difficulty but because the Belgian Commission for victims requires a complete record obviously easier to establish when the victims are in Belgium. This is obviously easier to put together when the victims live in Belgium, rather than abroad, he said.

Two other people were killed in the attack by an Islamist gunman.