Kerala woman killed in Gaza air strikes in Israel
JERUSALEM: A 30-year-old Indian woman working in Israel was killed in a rocket attack by Palestinian militants from Gaza, officials said.
Soumya Santosh, who came from Kerala’s Idukki district, worked as a caregiver attending to an old woman at a house in the southern Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon.
Ashkelon, which borders the Gaza Strip, has come under a massive fire from the Palestinian militants. The Indian woman was said to be living in Israel for the last seven years. She has a nine-year-old son whom she had left with her husband in Kerala.
Her 80-year-old elderly charge is said to have survived the direct hit on the house and is hospitalised in a serious condition, local media reports said.
Israel’s ambassador to India Ron Malka on Tuesday took to Twitter to condole the Indian woman’s death. “On behalf of the state of Israel, I convey heartfelt condolences to the family of Ms. Soumya Santosh,” he said.
According to Soumya’s family in Kerala, she was talking to her husband Santhosh over a video call in the evening when the incident took place.
IDUKKI: The family of a 30-yearold Kerala woman, who lost her life in a deadly Palestinian rocket attack in Israel, is yet to recover from shock.
They cannot believe that they will never be able to see her again. They never imagined such a tragic end to Soumya, who worked as a caregiver for an elderly woman in Ashkelon in that country, although she had often shared her anguish with them about massive firings in the Israeli territory by the Palestinian militants.
Her husband Santhosh, a resident of Keerithodu in Idukki district, is struggling to console their nine-year-old son, who could not cope with the situation. “He is awaiting her call,” Santhosh told reporters here, while holding back his tears.
It all happened as Soumya was planning her return to Kerala, ending over seven years of toil in the Israeli city, for a better life back home.
It was a Tuesday afternoon and Soumya was on a video call with her husband telling him about the tense atmosphere in the southern Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon. Little did she know that it would be her last call.
As she was sharing the details of the war-like situation prevailing in the area, Santhosh heard a huge sound on the other end.
Her phone, which was still connected, had fallen down. “I uttered “hello, hello” over the phone, but there was no response from the other side. After a minute-and-a-half, I could hear the noise of some people on the other end. The phone was still connected,” Santhosh said. Sensing danger, Santhosh immediately alerted his family members, who got in touch with Soumya’s friends in Ashkelon and came to know of her tragic demise.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said the Indian embassy in Tel Aviv is making efforts to bring Soumya’s mortal remains.