Ukrainian refugees who fled to Israel are facing the grim reality of an entirely new conflict after Hamas terrorists launched an attack on the country over the weekend.
Ahuva Rosilio, who moved his family from Odessa to Jerusalem in the early days of the Russian invasion, told The Post on Tuesday that the shock and awe of the recent terrorist attack felt “all too familiar.”
“It’s the second round, that’s what it feels like, we just did this last year,” said Rosilio, 28.
“This feels very familiar to what the war felt like at the beginning in Ukraine.”
The mother of four children, all under the age of 10, said she had to run to the building’s safe room as rockets flew overhead. The terrifying experience caused a wave of mixed feelings.
“It’s the same thoughts running through my head: ‘Is this just the beginning or is this the worst?’ Should I get out while I can? Where am I going to go this time? This is my house, I’m not leaving!’” she recalled.
“But I have to keep my children safe; this won’t last long, but that’s what I thought when I left Ukraine.”
The new trauma of the invasion of Ukraine looms large in the face of the shocking terror unfolding in their new home.
Ahuva Rosilio, her husband Shlomo and three of their children when they left Ukraine.
“I left a war – all my belongings, my whole life – to start over where I thought would be best for my children, the safest place, Jerusalem, my home,” he said.
The contrast between Russia’s premeditated invasion and Hamas’ surprise attack left the Rosilios in shock.
“It wasn’t like in Ukraine, when we talked for weeks, when we had time to plan an evacuation,” he said, describing the hours before the sirens howled, filled with the joy of the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah.
“There was so much happiness, so much normality.”
Children play on the playground in Ukraine before being transferred to Israel.
With thousands of Ukrainians fleeing to Israel amid the invasion, Rosilio, who is Orthodox, said settling in Israel was a relief that gave her a deep, palpable peace.
“We left just in time,” he said of his flight, one of the last to leave the Odessa airport, bombed hours later. “Last year, the children knew what was happening in Ukraine and why we left home, with all the talk of war.”
But Rosilio, an American who called Ukraine home for five years, said fleeing won’t solve the problem this time.
These children, who had just left Ukraine to avoid war there, “finally felt safe” according to their mother, Malki Bukiet, when the attacks in Israel began.
“It’s not about the country or the land – it’s about being Jewish. His objective is not to take over land, but to kill us,” he stated. “It doesn’t matter if we go to the United States or Cyprus. If I am Jewish, I am at risk. “They are waging war on a people.”
Another Ukrainian refugee, Malki Bukiet, fled her home near a military base in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, which she feared would be bombed during the invasion of Ukraine.
“It’s incredible: we came from a war in Ukraine and now we are falling into a war in Israel,” he told The Post.
Rabbi Zalman and Malki Bukiet and two children from the Chabad Children’s Home.
The mother of nine walked 13 hours to the Carpathian Mountains and crossed the border into Romania, carrying “only a small bag.”
Bukiet found peace last year in Ashkelon, Israel’s southern coastal city near the Gaza border, where she runs the Alumim Chabad Children’s Home with her husband, Zalman.
‘We are no longer at war,’” he said of his escape from Ukraine last February.
Bukiet says the children had finally adjusted to life in Israel when Saturday’s attacks began.
But that temporary peace was shattered during Hamas’ savage surprise attack on Saturday.
“It was very scary: we had hundreds of rockets that broke all the windows in my house and broke the roof, but we are alive,” the 42-year-old woman told the Post on Tuesday from her temporary shelter in central Israel.
Bukiet said the children are resilient despite their unfortunate circumstances, but their vulnerability and innocence are revealed.
Bukiet calls her children “resilient,” but recognizes their vulnerability through these difficulties.
“For the children, they had Ukraine first. “They knew something had happened, but they considered it a big trip – moving to Israel,” she said.
“They were traumatized because they left everything behind (school, their things) and it took them time to process the trauma.”
But the children, ages seven to 17, eventually acclimated to the language, school and new friends.
“They felt at peace and safe,” he said of the time they spent in Israel before the attack.
With a team of therapists, the young people are working on their anxiety amidst rockets and savagery.
“Some are more afraid: they jump at every noise,” Bukiet said. “They have been through a lot. We don’t know why or how, but this is his path and it will be forever.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn