On the night of March 21, a warning was issued that an Iranian missile attack was approaching the city of Arad in southern Israel. Pavel and his wife, Valentina, quickly got up, got dressed, and took their daughters, Anna and Nicole (ages 10 and 4), to the bomb shelter. The family tried to bring their cat with them, but after he began scratching in panic and would not calm down, they had to leave him behind. Just as the sirens sounded and Pavel shut the shelter door, a missile struck.
Pavel recalled, “It felt as if the whole building had been lifted up and shaken. The shock wave was extremely strong. I was sitting near the door, and when the blast tore the door off its hinges, I suffered a concussion. I did not lose consciousness, but there was such a loud roaring and ringing in my ears that I could not lift my head. Thank God, my wife and daughters were not physically injured. But what happened that night left a deep mark on all of us.”
The family made aliyah in 2017, before Nicole was born. Pavel chose to settle in Arad because Valentina’s brother and his family were already living there, and the city offered a quieter lifestyle compared to the hustle and bustle of Israel’s larger cities. For Pavel and Valentina, the perfect day meant meeting family members at a quiet playground on the Sabbath or going on a long hike together.
“We loved living in Arad so much that we decided to buy an apartment here. Yes, it came with a mortgage. Yes, we would have to pay for it for 25 years. But it was our apartment — our home. It was the place we returned to after work, where our children were growing up, where we kept our belongings, our photos, our routines — our whole life. It hurts so much to realize that we only had our apartment for four years,” Pavel said.
After the family was finally able to leave the shelter following the attack, the first thing they saw was their car — mangled and declared a total loss. They dreaded lifting their eyes to look at the apartment. The entire courtyard was covered in shattered glass and debris from the building. Clothes and toys were scattered everywhere. That morning, Pavel and his family had a home. Now, it was gone. The only things they were able to salvage were their washing machine and two mattresses.
“We searched for our cat for a long time,” Pavel continues. “The sofa he loved to lie on had been broken in two. Still, we believed he had survived. We wanted so badly to believe that. When my wife found him, he was no longer breathing. She cried. We buried him while the children were with the neighbors. We decided not to tell the girls the truth yet. We told them he got scared and ran away. Someday we will tell them what really happened, but not now. Right now, it is already too much for them.”
There is no cleanup work for The Fellowship to assist with, as the apartment is beyond repair and scheduled for demolition. However, thanks to an emergency assistance grant for olim, Pavel and his family are receiving financial support to help rebuild their lives and purchase essential items.
“The Fellowship supported us at the moment we needed it most. The help came exactly when we needed it — when we had to buy basic necessities, food, and begin rebuilding an ordinary life that had been destroyed in a single evening. We are deeply grateful to The Fellowship, its donors, and everyone who makes this kind of help possible,” says Pavel.
