The Bat Yam Municipality held a memorial ceremony on Monday for a family of five Ukrainians who were killed by a ballistic missile fired by Iran on June 15.
The missile hit Bat Yam and caused widespread destruction, several fatalities, including children, many wounded, and some missing people.
The attendees viewed the five coffins on display in front of the crash site. The three child-sized and two adult-sized coffins were covered in Israeli flags and several wreaths.
They contained the bodies of Anastasia Burik, eight; her mother, Olena Sokolova; Konstantin Tutevich, 10; Ilya Pashkurov, 15; and Maria Pashkurova, who were killed by the ballistic missile after midnight between Saturday and Sunday on June 15.
Bat Yam Mayor Zvika Brut and representatives of the Ukrainian mission to Israel spoke at the ceremony.
Lyudmila Yasinska-Damri, a Ukrainian-Israeli professor and the host of the memorial, told the attendees: “Anastasia, a brave girl, came to Israel from Ukraine to receive medical treatment. On that tragic night, a ballistic missile launched from Iran directly hit the residential building where she and her family lived. The impact was severe, and they were killed on the spot, as their home became a place of pain and loss.”
Memorial attended by Minister-Counselor of the Embassy of Ukraine
Their deaths left the Bat Yam community and the entire State of Israel in shock, she said.
Local politicians and community leaders, Minister-Counselor of the Embassy of Ukraine in Israel Gennady Barskalenko, and Sergey Sambatorsky, a Ukrainian military attaché, attended the ceremony.
“This is the biggest disaster that Bat Yam has ever had in nearly 100 years. Nine people died on the same day,” Brut told The Jerusalem Post after the ceremony.
“We saw that our enemies were specifically aiming at the civilian population,” he said. “In this disaster, we had nine fatalities, including three children, a Holocaust survivor, and other citizens.”
“To our enemies, it doesn't matter who was hit, just as long as they were Jews or Israelis,” he added. “This is why we decided that we will rebuild this building [that suffered the direct hit] taller and stronger, and we will fill it with more Israelis than ever.”
There are no secret military buildings in Bat Yam and its surrounding areas, Brut said.
“They knew that Bat Yam was only a civilian city,” he said. “There is no military presence around us, so we know that they just wanted to kill as many people as they could,” he told the Post.
“They may have destroyed a few buildings, but they cannot destroy our spirit,” Brut said. “These buildings will be fixed as soon as possible [and] filled with more Israelis.”