The first victim to be identified after the Iranian ballistic missile struck a residential building in Bat Yam overnight between Saturday and Sunday was 44-year-old Efrat Saranga. But as rescue operations progressed, the full scale of the tragedy slowly emerged.
Among the dead was 90-year-old Bella Ashkenazi. Her granddaughter, Shani Boana, who was sitting in a shelter in nearby Netanya during the attack, recognized her grandparents' scorched building on television footage. In that instant, dread took hold. Soon after, her fears were confirmed: her grandfather and uncle had been wounded by shrapnel but survived, while her grandmother was killed instantly.
Shani described the horrifying hours that followed. “I had a bad feeling that night,” she said. “Even before the sirens, I brought our passports into the safe room. Around 3:30 a.m., after the launches, I saw the reports and immediately recognized the building.” After a panicked call from the caregiver who lived with her grandparents — screaming that “everyone is dead” — the family learned that Bella's husband, Haim Ashkenazi, 100, and their son had been evacuated to the hospital in light condition, but Bella had not survived.
The couple’s apartment lacked a protected room. Though the building had a communal shelter, Bella, bedridden with dementia, could not be moved. Her husband used a walker. Their son, unwilling to abandon his parents, stayed with them as the missile struck.
Bella, a seamstress by trade, was remembered as endlessly kind, full of humor and deeply devoted to her family. Her daughter Aviva called her “a remarkable woman who gave everything to others,” while Shani recalled a grandmother who never tired of making clothes for her, even as her health declined. “We knew her time was nearing because of her illness,” Shani said, “but none of us imagined it would end this way.”
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'We don’t know how to break it to him', Bella and her husband Haim
(Photo: Private album)
The death toll in Bat Yam continued to rise throughout the day. Among the victims were Michael (Miki) Nahum, 61, a father of four, and Meir (Miro) Vaknin, 53, a father of three — both residents of the same building. The two men were killed when the missile struck directly, causing the building’s partial collapse.
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Tragedy also struck a Ukrainian family that had recently arrived in Israel for medical treatment. Four members of the family — a grandmother in her 50s and her three grandchildren, aged 8, 10, and 15 — were killed in the blast. The children's mother, 31, who is also the daughter of the deceased grandmother and mother of the 8-year-old, remains missing, with search efforts ongoing. The two older children had come to Israel without their own mother, who had stayed behind in Ukraine. The family had sought refuge from one war zone, only to become victims of another.
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Michael Nahum, Bella Ashkenazi, Efrat Saranga and Meir (Miro) Vaknin
(Photo: Courtesy of the families)
Following the attack, Ukraine confirmed that five of the casualties were its citizens. Kyiv’s Foreign Ministry announced that it is working with Israeli authorities to arrange for the return of the bodies, while the fifth Ukrainian citizen remains officially listed as missing.
Elsewhere that same night, the Iranian missile strikes also claimed the life of 75-year-old Avraham Cohen in Bnei Brak, after a direct hit on a residential building in the city.