Ukrainian refugees fleeing to Israel face the grim reality of a 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 Tuesday that the shock and awe of the recent terrorist attacks was “all too common.”
“It’s the second round – that’s how it feels, we just did it last year,” Rosilio, 28, said.
“This feels all too familiar with the feeling of war in early Ukraine.”
The mother of four, all under 10, said she had to run to the building’s safe room as rockets flew overhead. The terrifying experience brought conflicting feelings.
“It was the same thought playing in my head: ‘Is this just the beginning, or is this the worst?’ Should I get out while I still can? Where do I go this time? This is my home – I’m not leaving!’” she recalled.
“But my children, I have to keep them safe – this won’t last long, but that’s what I thought when I left Ukraine.”
The fresh trauma of the invasion of Ukraine looms large against the shocking violence unfolding in his new home.
Ahuva Rosilio, Shlomo’s husband, and their three children when they left Ukraine.
“I left one war – all my possessions, my whole life – to start over where I thought would be the best for my children, the safest place, Jerusalem, my home,” he said.
The contrast between a planned Russian invasion and a surprise attack by Hamas struck Rosilios with surprise.
“It’s not like in Ukraine when there were talks for weeks — when we had time to plan the evacuation,” he said, describing the hours before the sirens wailed, filled with the joy of the Jewish festival of Simchat Torah.
“There is so much happiness, so much normalcy.”
Children play in a playground in Ukraine before being transferred to Israel.
With thousands of Ukrainians fleeing to Israel amid the invasion, Rosilio, who is Orthodox, said that living in Israel is a relief that brings him deep and tangible peace.
“We got out just in time,” he said of his flight, one of the last out of Odessa airport, bombed hours later. “Last year, the kids knew what was happening in Ukraine and why we left home, with all the talk about the war.”
But Rosilio, an American who has called Ukraine home for five years, said that running away won’t solve the problem this time.
The children, who had just left Ukraine to avoid the 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. Their aim is not to take over any land – it is to kill us,” he said. “It doesn’t matter whether we go to America or Cyprus. If I’m Jewish, I’m at risk. They are fighting against a people.”
Another Ukrainian refugee, Malki Bukiet, fled his home near a military base in Zhytomyr, Ukraine – which he feared would be bombed in an invasion of Ukraine.
“It’s unbelievable – we came from a war in Ukraine, and now we’re involved in a war in Israel,” he told The Post.
Rabbi Zalman and Malki Bukiet and two boys from the Chabad Children’s Home.
The mother of nine trekked 13 hours across the Carpathian mountains and across the border into Romania – packing “just a small bag.”
Bukiet found peace last year in Ashkelon, a coastal city in southern Israel near the Gaza border where she runs the Alumim Chabad Children’s Home with her husband, Zalman.
‘We’re not at war anymore,’” he said of his escape from Ukraine last February.
Bukiet said the children were finally adjusting to life in Israel when Saturday’s attacks began.
But that temporary peace was shattered during a violent surprise attack by Hamas on Saturday.
“It was very scary – we had hundreds of rockets that broke all the glass in my house and broke the roof – but we’re still alive,” the 42-year-old told The Post on Tuesday from his temporary shelter in Central Israel.
Bukiet said the children persevered despite adversity, but their vulnerability and innocence revealed themselves.
Bukiet calls her children “resilient” but acknowledges their weakness through these difficulties.
“For children, first they have Ukraine. They know something is happening, but they treat it like a big trip, moving to Israel,” he said.
“They’re traumatized because they’re leaving everything — school, their stuff — and they’re taking time to process that trauma.”
But the children, aged seven to 17, are finally settling in – with a new language, school and friends.
“They felt safe – and safe,” he said of their time in Israel before the attack.
With a group of therapists, the youngsters are trying to overcome their anxiety in the midst of rockets and savagery.
“Some are more scared – they jump at every sound,” Bukiet said. “They went through so much. We don’t know why or how, but this is their way, and it will be good.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
