Eyewitness: The grief of an Israeli family

Moshe's mother can't believe her son will never come home

By Orla Guerin in Jerusalem

Tal says his big brother Moshe had just gone out to have some fun, but everything was destroyed in one bang.

He wasn't even 20. He didn't have a chance to live

Moshe's mother

His younger brother, Adam, shows me a picture of Moshe, who was just 19.

And their mother Anat keeps asking how her son could have just gone for pizza and will now never be coming home.

Moshe was one of 10 teenagers killed on Saturday night in two suicide bomb attacks at a pedestrian mall in Jerusalem.

Trying to help

Adam says Moshe survived the first blast, but his friend was wounded and as he rushed to help, he ran straight into the path of the second suicide bomber.

Twenty-five Israelis were killed in suicide attacks at the weekend

Relatives have gathered to sit the seven days of mourning, according to Jewish tradition, to be close to the grieving parents.

Moshe's father Yanki told me how he remembered his first-born.

"Like a friend not like a son, always happy with us," he said, as friends and family do their best to console his mother.

"He wasn't even 20. He didn't have a chance to live," she said.

"These awful murderers cut off his life. Our whole country is soaked in blood."

Calls for revenge

To Israelis it seems that way.

Many are looking to Sharon for revenge

The newspapers are full of pictures of the carnage and the stories of those who died, like the two 15-year-olds who had been friends since birth and died side-by-side.

One 19-year-old was killed out on a date with a new girlfriend.

In their grief Israelis are calling for tough action, saying they want to feel safe on their streets.

They want Yasser Arafat to be hit hard and Ariel Sharon believes the United States has given him a free hand to do as he sees fit.

Video footage of one of the suicide bombers leaves no doubt as to what Israel is facing.

The young militant poses proudly for the camera before issuing a chilling statement - the attacks will not stop until Israel ends its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Those areas now under a total Israeli closure, the Palestinians are imprisoned in their towns and villages.

Innocent civilians once again paying the price for what the extremists have done.

Israeli helicopter gunships have now launched air strikes on Palestinian targets in the Gaza Strip.

Few here doubt that a turning point has been reached.