2 Girls Connected to Chabad Killed in Netanya Blast

Tragedy in Netanya: Two young girls age 16 left for home from a shiur in Netanya, not before taking Neshek kits to be given out on their weekly mivtzoim route. But this was not destined to happen, as they lost their young lives r”l in a gas explosion in Netanya last night. The Lubavitcher community, and Rabbi Yaakov Mazoz, who they studied with, are in shock after learning who the blast victims are.

From Chabad.org news:

Four people, including two teenage volunteers of the local French-speaking Chabad-Lubavitch center, lost their lives in an accidental gas explosion that rocked a four-story building in the Israeli coastal resort of Netanya.

According to police, several theories are being examined to explain the tragedy, including the theft of part of a gas line by someone attempting to scavenge valuable metal.

Rabbi Yaacov Mazouz, director of the Ohr Menachem Chabad House directly across from the doomed commercial and residential complex off of Independence Square, said that earlier Thursday night, the girls had left the Chabad House after a class on Chasidic thought and went out with friends for pizza. Just before the deadly blast, the two volunteers were handing out Sabbath candles to passing women.

“They usually distributed the candles on Friday morning, but this week they decided to do it on Thursday night,” said a shaken Mazouz. “They had been coming to the Chabad House for the past three years.”

Mazouz was in touch with the victims’ families and offered to help in any way possible.

The Chabad House was slightly damaged in the explosion.