Haifa post office destroyed by rocket
צילום: דורון גולן
New immigrant hurt by rocket: I'm staying in Israel
Galina Goldianka, who lost her foot in rocket attack on Haifa, says: 'I'm crazy about Israel, there's no other country like it'
Drama behind rockets: At about 1:20 p.m. on Friday, a barrage of four rockets landed in Haifa. One of the rockets, equipped with ball bearings, directly hit the central post office in town, ripping through the buildings roof and causing large-scale devastation.
Luckily, the post office, which is usually crowded at this time, was shut down about an hour earlier and the place was empty when the rocket fell. But the real drama took place a few meters outside the building.
Galina Goldianka, 43, a new immigrant who arrived in the country only a year ago from Russia, left the house in which she was taking shelter during the attack just seconds before the rocket landed on the post office.
"I heard two blasts, I thought the strike was over and I came out," she said later.
At that moment, the rocket fell on the nearby building, Galina was hit by large shrapnel and her right foot was amputated on the spot. "I was bleeding heavily," she recounted: "I was crawling on the pavement and people around me were screaming, 'her leg is gone'."
Surgery failed
However, Galina herself did not lose her cool. "The officers who arrived at the place panicked a little, but the injured woman remained calm," Yossi Ben Hamo of the Haifa police said. Immediately after the force got to the scene, one of the policemen managed to locate the amputated foot and Galina was rushed to the Rambam Hospital in a Magen David Adom ambulance.
Surgeons at the hospital attempted to reattach the foot, but to no avail.
Galina, who works as a cleaner, said from her hospital bed on Saturday: "I'm crazy about this country. There is no other country in the world like Israel and no other city like Haifa."
However, and despite her optimism, Galina is going to face a tough problem when she is released from the hospital: As she lives in the fourth floor in a building with no elevator, she may find it impossible to climb all the way up to her apartment due to her injury.
Lior El-Chai contributed to the report
