Kerala woman, 31, killed in rocket attack in Israel

TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ A 30-year-old Indian woman in Israel has been killed in a rocket attack by Palestinian militants from Gaza, according to officials. Soumya Santosh, who hailed from Kerala’s Idukki district, worked as a caregiver attending to an old woman at a house in the southern Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon. Ashkelon, which borders the Gaza Strip, has come under a massive fire from the Palestinian militants.

At least 31 people were killed in spiralling violence till 9 pm (local time) on Tuesday as Gaza-based militants fired hundreds of rockets on Israel since Monday evening. Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes at Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in the coastal strip. The Indian woman was said to be living in Israel for the last seven years.

She has a nine-year-old son whom she had left with her husband in Kerala. Her 80-year-old elderly charge is said to have survived the direct hit on the house and is hospitalised in a serious condition, local media reports said. The deadly rocket attack directly struck the house of the elderly woman.