Twenty-eight people were killed in Israel by Iranian missile attacks during the 12-day conflict between Jerusalem and Tehran — the oldest of whom was a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor, and the youngest of whom was a 7-year-old Ukrainian cancer patient.

Israel launched a preemptive attack in the early morning hours of June 13 on Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile facilities and key targets, to counter Iran’s avowed threat to destroy the Jewish state. Iran responded by firing approximately 550 ballistic missiles and around 1,000 drones at Israel. Most of the missiles were intercepted, but 36 ballistic missile impacts were reported in populated areas, including multiple apartment buildings, as well as on critical infrastructure sites, including a power station in southern Israel and an oil refinery in Haifa.

The Health Ministry said 3,238 people were treated in hospitals around the country for injuries sustained due to the Iranian attacks. Around 240 buildings sustained serious damage, leaving over 13,000 Israelis displaced. Twenty-seven of those killed were civilians, and one was an off-duty soldier at home with his family.

On the first day of the war, Eti Cohen Angel, 74, was killed when a ballistic missile slammed into a residential building in Ramat Gan. Her boyfriend was seriously wounded in the strike but survived.

She worked as a medical pedicurist and left behind four daughters. In an interview with La’Isha magazine in 2011, Cohen Angel spoke about her childhood growing up in Tel Aviv, including meeting Frank Sinatra when he visited Israel. Only later in life, after her divorce, she said, did she learn how to rediscover her inner child, “to feel playful, cheerful, to know how to get out of complicated situations and to approach everything with humor.”

Early Saturday morning, Yisrael Aloni, 73, and Yevgenia Blinder, 74, were slain after a building in Rishon Lezion was struck by a missile.

Aloni worked as a barber for more than 50 years and was survived by his three children, Eran, Ricki, and Uri, and 11 grandchildren, his family said. His son, Eran, told the Kan public broadcaster that his father “was a wonderful person… everyone in Rishon knows him, he loved helping everyone, you couldn’t say one bad thing about him.”

Blinder moved to Israel in 1992 from Ukraine and settled in Rishon Lezion, according to the municipality. She was a surgeon by training who continued to work as a doctor in Israel after her aliyah, the city’s mayor said, including as a geriatric specialist at an old age home in Tel Aviv, until she retired. Her niece, Yulia, said she was “the perfect aunt.”

Late Saturday night, four women in the same family were killed when a missile struck their family home in the northern city of Tamra. They were named as Manar Al-Heija Khatib, 45, her daughters Shada, 20 and Hala, 13, as well as Manar Diab Khatib, a sister-in-law of the other Manar.

Both Manar Al-Heija Khatib and Manar Diab Khatib worked as teachers, their families said.

Raja Khatib, who lost his wife and two of his daughters, as well as his sister-in-law, told Ynet that “I lost the most beautiful flowers of my life.” His wife, he added, was “a teacher, a successful and a wonderful woman who raised our children in the best way possible.”

Ihab, the widower of Manar Diab Khatib, said his wife was “a professional and honest educator, and everyone loved her. I always heard positive and joyful........

© The Times of Israel