An Israeli Mother's Pain - Ryan Jones ISRAEL TODAY

An Israeli Mother's Pain

Tuesday, April 19, 2016 | Ryan Jones ISRAEL TODAY

It was difficult to watch Rachel Dadon speak to reporters on Israeli television on Tuesday.

Just a day earlier, Rachel and her 16-year-old daughter Eden were wounded when a terrorist’s bomb engulfed their bus in flames in Jerusalem’s Talpiot neighborhood.

Rachel Dadon approached the media microphones a broken woman after visiting her daughter in hospital for the first time since the attack.

“I had a healthy daughter and now it’s difficult to look,” said Rachel, who suffered light injuries in the blast. “No mother wants to go through something like this.”

Eden, her mother recalled, always liked to sit at the back of the bus, so that’s where she ran to as Rachel paid the fare and started making a phone call.

“…suddenly the whole bus blew up. There was soot and something went up in flames,” she said. “At the time I was confused, but in a second I remembered my daughter and looked for her.”

In that split second, Eden, who had sat almost exactly where the bomb was located, had suffered severe burns and other injuries.

“I saw her with burns and her whole skin peeling,” recounted the distraught mother. “She told me, ‘Mom it hurts, it burns.’ Eden sat on the ground and couldn’t move. She asked me to bring her water, but I didn’t have any.”

After that, “things became dark, everything was darkness and blood. I couldn’t find myself,” said Rachel.

Thanks to the quick response time of Israel’s medical services, Eden’s life was saved, but she isn’t yet in the clear. She remains on a respirator at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, where doctors say Eden has improved, but remains in serious condition.

In the aftermath of such senseless violence perpetrated against her child and other innocents, Rachel Dadon sent the following letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau:

“I call on Netanyahu to wake up. Whenever I saw attacks and wounded victims, I prayed for their recovery. But now I am experiencing it. I can’t stand it. It’s not just me, it’s thousands of people who were left disabled and wounded. It’s scary to just go outside. I didn’t expect to go out to treat my daughter and come back wounded.”

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