Childhood Friends Killed in Tel Aviv Terror Attack Laid to Rest

The three Israelis murdered in Thursday's shooting attack in Tel Aviv were laid to rest on Sunday.

Tomer Morad, 28, and Eytam Magini, 27, of Tel Aviv, who grew up in Kfar Sava, were buried in their hometown, just outside Tel Aviv, in two separate ceremonies.

"Evil and hatred will not resolve any conflict, but will cause sorrow," Magini's father said, adding that "we will remember you as a beloved friend, an artistic person who knew how to bring people together. You were an amazing conversation partner and a friend. It is very sad that you left Ayala your fiancée and us at such a young age."

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"This was supposed to be just another boring Sunday for us, we would watch a dumb show on TV that we like, but we are not," Ariel Weinblatt, Morad's girlfriend, wrote in his memory. "I can't see the 'RIP' written next to your name, for you are so alive."

Gil Glick, a friend of the two childhood friends, said: “They were amazing people. Full of ideas, intelligent. They were really the salt of the earth.”

"It's hard to believe that his smile and presence will no longer illuminate the worlds of Esther and Benyamin, his dear parents, and those of his brothers, Tal and Omri. A child whose good spirit has lightened his environment. That child is gone," Morad's grandfather eulogized him, adding that when the new stadium in Kfar Sava will be built "we will make sure to commemorate the memory of Tomer and Eytam by calling a stand after them. That way we will remember them and their love of soccer. It is our duty to them."

Morad was a fourth-year undergraduate student studying mechanical engineering at Tel Aviv University. He had recently started working at a new job.

Magini was engaged to Ayala and worked as a software developer. He was a third-year undergraduate student in neuroscience, computer science and psychology at Tel Aviv University.

The third victim of the attack is Barak Lufan, 35, who lived in the Tel Aviv suburb of Givat Shmuel and came from Kibbutz Ginosar in the Galilee, where he was laid to rest later on Sunday.

His mother, Bahira, said: “Barak will remain with us forever, we’ll protect our family, we won’t give up, we won’t forget.”

Lufan, married and a father of three, was severely wounded in the attack and died of his wounds on Friday. He kayaked competitively and won a bronze medal in the European championships, and in past years trained Paralympic athletes.

“We’ll see Barak in every picture, every moment, an athlete, strong,” his mother added, "As strong as he was, it didn’t help, the injury was so severe. I was sure he was strong enough, but it didn’t help. Our youngest child, a wonderful child, a devoted father, a trainer, an educator. I read what his rowing trainees wrote about him, I didn’t know that side of him, the kind of educational figure he was,” she said.

A friend of Lufan’s said: “Barak was the best son any parent could have asked for. He was the best friend anyone could have wanted. The best husband a wife could have wanted. The best father any child could dream of.” Another friend, Omer, said: “Barak wasn’t just a friend, he was a rib of every one of us here, an inseparable part of our body. The terror attack broke that rib. It hasn't sunk in.”