


A body discovered on Thursday in the rubble of a building hit by an Iranian missile in Bat Yam early Sunday morning has been identified as that of Maria Peshkurova.
Peshkurova, 30, was a Ukrainian national and the mother of 7-year-old Nastia Borik, who came to Israel for cancer treatment and was killed in the missile strike along with her grandmother and two cousins.
Peshkurova had been missing since the strike and was presumed dead along with her four other family members.
The confirmation of her death brought the total of people killed by the missile that hit the high-rise apartment building to 10. Nearly 200 were wounded, rescue services said.
Peshkurova came to Israel with Borik in 2022 along with her mother, Lena Peshkurova, 60, and two cousins, Konstantin Totvich, 9, and Ilya Peshkurov, 13, all of whom were killed in the strike.
According to the Ynet news site, Borik’s father, Artem, is in Ukraine fighting in the war against Russia, and could not accompany his daughter due to a government order barring men under the age of 60 from leaving the country during the conflict.
Civilians who were inside bomb shelters in the Bat Yam building were unharmed, a Home Front Command search and rescue official said. Each floor in the apartment building has a shared safe room for the use of residents of that floor, and the building also has an underground shelter.
According to the Home Front Command official, everyone who was in shelters was unharmed, while all of the casualties were outside of the shelters.
Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in the past week. Most have been shot down by Israel’s multi-tiered air defenses, which detect incoming fire and shoot down missiles heading toward population centers and critical infrastructure. Israeli officials acknowledge the system is imperfect.
Last Friday, Israel launched a campaign of airstrikes in Iran to decimate the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, which Jerusalem characterized as an imminent, existential threat. Iran has responded with deadly barrages of ballistic missiles at civilian population centers and military targets in Israel.
Iran, which vows to destroy Israel, has always denied any ambition to develop nuclear weapons, but its enrichment levels go far beyond any civilian application, and the IAEA says it has obstructed inspectors from visiting its nuclear sites.
A Washington-based Iranian human rights group said at least 639 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 1,300 wounded.
Iran has fired over 450 missiles and around 1,000 drones, killing at least 24 people in Israel and wounding hundreds.