Miriam Amitai

Nov 20, 2000 - Miriam Amitai, 35, of Kfar Darom, was killed when a roadside bomb exploded alongside a bus carrying children from Kfar Darom to school in Gush Katif.

A wire-operated artillery shell ripped into a schoolbus near Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip, killing two and wounding nine others, most of them children. Three terrorists detonated a 120 mm. shell with a sophisticated fusing mechanism about 20 meters from the road the bus was on, according to the IDF. Thirty children, teachers and escorts were travelling in the bus as it made its way from the settlement to the school in Gush Katif when the attack took place.

Miriam Amitai, a Kfar Darom resident, was one of the two people killed in the attack, along with Gavriel Biton. She was buried in the West Bank settlement of Ofra. Among the mourners were Amitai's pupils at the Girls' High School in Gush Katif, where she taught.

The Open University awarded a bachelor's degree posthumously to Miriam Amitai. Her husband accepted the certificate in the arts and social sciences in a ceremony held on May 17 at the university's campus in Ramat Aviv. Like most of the university's graduates, she completed her degree mainly via the Internet.

Miriam Amitai left behind a husband and four children.