Bodies Of 7 Victims Of Brooklyn House Fire To Be Flown To Israel

> The seven siblings killed in the Brooklyn fire will be flown to Israel, where the family lived until about two years ago. Photo from New York Daily News Facebook page.

As New York and a close-knit Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn prepared for a funeral for seven siblings killed in a fire early Saturday morning, preparations were underway to fly the bodies to Israel for burial.

Four brothers and their three sisters, ages 5 through 16, died in the city’s deadliest fire since 2007, after a hot plate used to keep food warm for the Sabbath malfunctioned on the first floor of their home in Homewood, fire officials said.

The fire apparently started just after Friday moved to Saturday. Sabbath among observant Jewish families forbids the lighting of flame, and hot plates are often used to keep food warm from sundown on Friday until Sabbath’s end, on Saturday night.

The New York Times identified those killed in the Brooklyn fire as sisters, Eliane, 16; Rivkah, 11; and Sara, 6; and brothers: David, 12; Yeshua, 10; Moshe, 8; and Yaakob, 5.

The mother, Gayle Sassoon, whose bedroom was at the back of the house,escaped with daughter Siporah, 15, by jumping out of a second-floor window, the Times and other media reported.

The mother was at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, which has a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for burn victims, the paper reported, and Siporah was at Staten Island University Hospital North.

The children were all trapped in their bedrooms in the back of the top floor, WCBS 880’s Sophia Hall reported.

“It’s difficult to find one child in a room during a search,” New York Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro said during a Saturday morning news conference. “To find a house full of children that can’t be revived, I’m sure it will take its toll on our members for quite some time.”

Authorities said the mother of the house made it across the street to a cousin’s house begging for help, then collapsed.

Neighbor Andrew Rosenblatt said he called 911.

“I was up in the back room on the computer and I hear screaming from a child, ‘Mommy, mommy, help me’” Rosenblatt told CBS2’s Matt Kozar. “It’s devastating. You never expect it to happen so close.”

The family moved to Brooklyn from Israel about two years ago because Gayle Sassoon wanted to reconnect with her large extended family, the Times reported.

The funeral services were to be held at 3 p.m. at Shomrei Hadas, a funeral chapel in Borough Park, Brooklyn, that serves the Orthodox Jewish community.