Iman Kabha

Jun 18, 2002 - Iman Kabha, 26, of Barta, was one of 19 people killed in a suicide bombing at the Patt junction in Egged bus no. 32A traveling from Gilo to the center of Jerusalem.

The terrorist boarded the bus at 7:50 A.M. at the stop in Beit Safafa, an Arab neighborhood opposite Gilo, and almost immediately detonated the large bomb which he carried in a bag stuffed with ball bearings. The blast destroyed the front half of the bus, packed with people on their way to work and schoolchildren. Of the 19 victims, 17 were residents of the Gilo neighborhood; 74 people were injured.

Iman Kabha, the sixth in a family of seven children from the Arab Israeli village of Barta in the Lower Galilee, was a first year student at the David Yellin Teachers College in Jerusalem, where he was studying special education and Hebrew. He had been working for a few years, saving up to be able to study. He had phoned his father a few days earlier to tell him about his good grades.

Iman rented an apartment in Beit Safafa together with two fellow students. Yesterday, he got up at 6 A.M. and left the apartment at 7:35. Osama, one of his roommates, said, "He didn't want to be late for his final meeting of the year with our pedagogical teacher at 8:30. He was handsome, worked hard and everybody's friend. He loved to cook." He waited for the bus together with other Arab students of the college from Beit Safafa. The terrorist was waiting at the same bus stop.

Iman Kabha was buried in Barta. He is survived by his parents and six siblings.