On March 2, Olga, her husband Yuri, and their three daughters were at home in Be’er Sheva when their phones alerted them to an incoming Iranian rocket attack. Olga didn’t hesitate—she immediately took the girls down to their basement shelter. Yuri, however, thought he still had the time to take out the trash. But just before he could get to safety, a rocket struck the house next to their apartment. Olga says she saw Yuri thrown into the air by the blast and slammed against a wall.
Olga and the girls were inside the shelter, but the force of the explosion knocked them to the floor and blew the doors open. Fortunately, a neighbor pulled Yuri to safety. Once the smoke cleared, the family reunited and tried to calm the children. Their heads ached, and their ears were ringing.
“The apartment had been torn to pieces,” Olga told us. “There were no doors or windows left, and everything was covered in glass. The freezer had been flipped over, and all the food had spilled out. The refrigerator, TV, living room furniture, and cabinets had all been broken. All of our belongings were covered in broken glass, chunks of plaster, and dust. Thank God, I had managed to take our documents with me into the shelter.”
Yuri, Olga, and their family made aliyah to Israel shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. Like their new home in Be’er Sheva, their home in Mariupol, Ukraine, had also been hit by a rocket attack. Everything was destroyed, and the city became too dangerous to remain, so they decided to evacuate to Israel. At the time, they had only one daughter, Marianna, who is now 15. Since then, they have had two more daughters—Gabrielle and Adel, now 3 and 2. Until now, the younger girls had not experienced the threat of rocket fire or the need to take shelter, as their parents and older sister had.
The Fellowship has supported this family since their aliyah, first providing evacuation from the war zone and bringing them to the Holy Land. Olga says they chose to settle in Be’er Sheva because of Soroka Hospital’s maternity ward, as she planned to have more children. Now, with a larger family and once again facing displacement, The Fellowship has stepped in to help the family.
“Can you imagine the state we were in?” Olga said. “We had no home, no money, and nothing to feed our children with. We truly did not know what to do, where to go, or how we were supposed to live now. Later that day, we got a call inviting us to a support center. There, we were offered temporary housing. And imagine our astonishment when we received help from The Fellowship to buy groceries.”
