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Nastia Came to Israel for Life…Iran Caused Her Death

By Shlomo Maital

           Nastia Borik was 7 years old.   She was Ukrainian and had travelled to Israel for life-saving leukemia treatment.  

           She was killed in an Iranian missile strike in the Israeli town of Bat Yam on Saturday, along with her mother, grandmother and two young cousins. Nastia’s father  is serving on the Ukrainian front lines against the Russian invasion.   He was given the awful news while serving at the front.

           Russia under Putin continues to target Ukrainian civilians in Kyiv and other cities.  Many die each day.  Ukraine has a desperate shortage of anti-rocket and anti-drone devices; Israel has them, but clearly needs all it has for its own defense against Iran.

           My wife and I respond to sirens and go to our bomb shelter once or twice daily.  Most Iranian rockets, targeting civilians and cities, are intercepted by Israel’s Arrow 3, David’s Sling and Iron dome inteceptors, aided at times by the US THAAD interceptors. But a few get through. 

           Nastia was killed, after she and her family were rented a flat in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv, in an area with many refugees, in older buildings that lacked modern shelters.  The Iranian missile carrying close to a ton of explosives (no shrapnel, just TNT) had a powerful blast wave that destroyed the building and killed Nastia and her family.

            An Israeli poet named Haim Nahman Bialik wrote a poem over a century ago, responding to the pogrom in Kishinev (capital of what is the country of Moldova today), when Jewish women and children were slaughtered by Cossacks; the poem ends by saying ‘revenge for the death of a small child – even the Devil has not invented’.   

            The Bible recounts that God instructed Abraham to ‘be a blessing’, and later, instructed the Jews to “choose life”.  Jews and Muslims are descendants of Abraham, and we both revere him.  We are obligated to choose life. 

         There are those who choose to sow death.  In the evolution of humanity, it may take time, it may involve sorrow and pain – but life will defeat death.