Momi Elimelech, whose mother, Sarah, and sister, Ronit, were murdered by an Iranian missile strike on Beit Shemesh, shared how rescue forces found the two together.
"I knew that my sister Ronit and my mother were murdered, and they couldn't find them. The shelter and synagogue collapsed, there were searches, and they didn't find them," he related.
"In the end, they found them in some corner. My mother was holding my sister's hand, and my sister was holding my mother's hand. They didn't part. In life and in death, they didn't part," he lamented.
"This is the most difficult day of my life. What happened to me hasn't even sunk in. I was in bed, and I suddenly heard a boom. Everything fell on my head, the entire home that I built was ruined and broken."
The attack claimed the lives of nine, including Sarah and Ronit Elimelech, Oren Katz, and 16-year-old Gavriel Baruch Revach. The disaster occurred when an Iranian missile scored a direct hit on a public shelter in a synagogue.
Jerusalem District Commander Avshalom Peled assessed that some of the victims had been inside a shelter, and the Home Front Command is examining whether it was functioning properly.
Other fatalities were in nearby buildings at the time of the impact. The IDF said a review found that the alert system was activated as required prior to the strike.