A 105-year-old Holocaust survivor celebrated her birthday in a Haifa bomb shelter last week as Iranian missiles targeted Israel.
The centenarian, Miriam, was seen dancing and determinedly enjoying her birthday despite the war in a video posted by the Embassy of Israel to the United States.
The embassy posted on X: “Even as sirens sounded and missiles fell, the celebration didn’t stop. A lifetime of resilience on full display.”
Singer Regev Hod serenaded Miriam, who was pictured dancing with her friends, many of them waving Israeli flags.
Comments under the post read: “Am Yisrael chai” and “God [loves] her.”
Over Pesach many Israelis had to hold Seders in bomb shelters. It came after weeks of bombardment, with weddings and other aspects of ordinary life conducted underground or in safe rooms.
Last week one man spoke to YouTube news channel APT from inside his shelter. He said: “One of the texts we have in the Passover Seder talks about the fact that in every generation, there are those who rise up and try and destroy the Jewish people, starting with the Pharaoh in Egypt.
“With every generation it happens – but if you look at Jewish history, uncannily it seems to be the case [that] there is always a happy ending...
“At the end of the day, God always steps in and saves us.
“Even as we are sitting in Tel Aviv, and we see this barrage of missiles coming over and then the kind of modern miracle where the interceptors go up and mange to stop most of them... we can look back at our history and see that we are connecting to that process.”
But the continual targeting of civilian locations in Israel resulted in new victims this week, also in Haifa, as four people were confirmed dead after a building was destroyed.
Emergency services recovered the bodies of a man in his 40s, a woman in her 30s, and two others in their 80s from the rubble on Monday.
The IDF had attempted to intercept the missile heading towards the city, but it broke apart early in flight and scattered into pieces, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Magen David Adom Director-General Eli Bin said that at least three people were being treated for injuries caused by shrapnel. At least four others were being treated for anxiety-related symptoms.
Benjamin Netanyahu called Haifa’s mayor Yona Yahav on Monday to express his “deep sorrow over the tragic loss of four lives”.
The prime minister said following his conversation with the mayor: "The most important thing, however, which came up again in this conversation, is one simple rule, an ironclad rule.
"For those who follow the instructions of the Home Front Command and remain in a protected area, the chances of getting hurt are virtually non-existent."
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