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Employers of Filipina caretaker killed by Iranian missile remember ‘angel on Earth’

132 0
02.03.2026

The Filipina carer Mary Anne Velasquez de Vera, 32, who was killed Saturday night in an Iranian missile strike on Tel Aviv, was “an angel on Earth,” according to her previous employers — her first upon arriving in Israel.

Barbara Wachspress and her sister Janice Prawer reached out to The Times of Israel because, they said, they wanted the public to know how special she was.

They also revealed that the young woman, who had married another Philippine national two years ago, was pregnant with the couple’s first child when she became the first fatality in Israel of the current war with Tehran.

She was “injured while selflessly assisting her patient to safety” during the Iranian missile attack, according to the Israeli embassy in Manila.

Velasquez de Vera was found in critical condition after the ballistic missile struck next to an apartment building in the coastal city. Paramedics pronounced her dead while rushing her to the hospital. She was identified by her husband.

The woman she was caring for was extracted by rescue workers from the rubble alive.

Twenty-seven others were injured, including two in moderate condition and 25 who sustained light injuries in the attack.

Velasquez de Vera first came to Israel as a carer in 2019, and the first person she cared for was Doris Gurin. Gurin had recently immigrated, at the age of 89, together with daughter Prawer and her family, from Riverdale, Bronx. They lived in separate........

© The Times of Israel