JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Rescue and emergency teams recovered another body early Monday morning in the Bat Yam building which partially collapsed on Saturday night after it was hit by an Iranian ballistic missile. The body was transferred to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute for identification. The total number of civilians killed in Iran’s attacks now stands at 23.
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So far, the bodies of eight Bat Yam residents have been found, and rescue forces continue searching the area, as some people are still missing. Authorities have now cleared for publication the name of one victim: Bella Ashkenazi, aged 94. Bella Ashkenazi’s husband and son were injured in the same incident and are currently hospitalized at Ichilov Hospital.
Bella’s granddaughter Shani Buana told Ynet:
“Their apartment didn’t have a reinforced safe room. There’s a shelter in the building, but both my grandfather and grandmother were dependent on nursing care. My grandfather is 100 years old and uses a walker. My grandmother was 94 and couldn’t walk at all. In recent years, she also suffered from dementia and was confined to a nursing bed that was placed in the living room.”
“It wasn’t possible to bring both of them down to the shelter every time a siren went off. In my opinion, that’s also why my uncle didn’t evacuate — out of solidarity. He couldn’t just run to the shelter and leave his parents unprotected.”
Another victim was identified as 44-year-old Efrat Saranga. The other victims have not been identified but the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that five of them had Ukrainian citizenship.
Following hours of searches, the deaths of three missing persons were confirmed this morning in Haifa, where a direct Iranian missile strike occurred. This brings the total death toll from last night’s attacks to eight.
In addition to the three in Haifa, five more people were killed by missile strikes in Petah Tikva and Bnei Brak and 92 others were injured. Three of those killed were elderly people who had been in their safe room when it received a direct hit. The Home Front Command stressed that the safe rooms protect from shrapnel and blast wave but not from direct hits, which are rare.
An 80-year-old man was killed in Bnei Brak, but he had not been in a safe room.
One woman in her 30s is in serious condition with facial injuries, 6 in moderate condition and 85 others with light injuries
Rescue and search operations are still ongoing at two of the four impact sites, as authorities continue looking for survivors or additional victims.
