Last update - 02:02 06/05/2007
Single mom among six killed in weekend traffic accidents
By Haaretz Staff
Six people were killed in weekend traffic accidents. Four of the victims were killed on the Be'er Sheva bypass road Friday night when their car swerved and hit a van heading in the opposite direction. The occupants of the van, a couple in their 40s, were seriously injured.
Michael Gurayev, 27, of Ramleh was killed on Thursday night around 11 P.M. near the Bilu junction when his car swerved for unknown reasons and hit an electric pole.
In another accident, a man was killed early Friday morning when a car crashed into him when he standing on the side of the Geha highway. The man was a resident of the Palestinian village Kablah.
In the bypass road accident, the car carrying the four victims was apparently attempting to pass another vehicle on the road between the Goral and Tel Sheva junctions when it crashed into the van. An initial investigation suggests that the driver of the private car fell asleep at the wheel.
Among the passengers was a 25-year-old single mother, Miriam Goralishvili, who left behind a four-year-old daughter. Goralishvili worked for a pharmaceutical company in Rehovot, and was on her way to a Sinai holiday with three others, including two co-workers.
Goralishvili, who came to Israel from Georgia in 1999, left Israel for three years during which she married and had her daughter. She then returned to Israel and moved to Rehovot, where she moved in with her mother, brother and uncle. Her husband remained in Georgia. Goralishvili began to work as a cleaner in a pharmaceutical company where company CEO Tzvi Fish says her skills, including a command of English, saw her promoted to a technical position.
Goralishvili's uncle, Alexander Wichman, said he and her mother had begged her not to go to Sinai because of the security dangers. There had been a terrorist attack on her last trip to Sinai. He said Goralishvili's mother would raise the child.
The driver, Alon Perlman-Speir, a co-worker of Goralishvili was to have celebrated his 27th birthday today. His father was killed in a car accident when he was a baby.
Megiddo-Afula road: bad news for bikes
Meanwhile, four bicyclists were injured yesterday morning when they were hit by a car that veered onto the shoulder between Megiddo and Afula.
One of the bicyclists was seriously injured, one moderately wounded, and the other two lightly hurt. All four of them were taken to Afula's Haemek Hospital. Two years ago Israel's cycling champion, Golan Shalmon, 36, from Ramat Yishai, was killed on the same road when he was hit by a bus while cycling.