Operation Pillar of Defense: Killed by a direct hit on Kiryat Malachi (Photo: Reuters, IDF Spokesperson, Editing by Gadi Weinstock, Narration: Aviv Abramovich)
The life of Shalom Rotban, the young man from Kiryat Malachi who was returned from Jordan last Thursday, changed drastically when he was only 17 years old. Then, a rocket fired from Gaza hit a building in his hometown, killing three of his friends. He arrived at the scene first, even before the rescue forces, and saw his comrades killed. These scenes deeply affected him, and his family says that this normal child was severely burned by the sights he saw and has not remained the same since.
The building damaged in Kiryat Malachi, 2012 (Photo: Ben Kalmer)
The rocket hit the apartment directly, claiming the lives of Yitzhak Amsalem, Mira Sharpe and Aaron Samaja. In addition, an eight-month-old baby and another person were moderately injured and four others were lightly injured by shrapnel. Witnesses to the destruction left behind by the rocket said the sight was shocking. "I was walking around the building, all the neighbors were screaming, I felt the ground open, there was a loud boom and pressure," Shai said of the rocket explosion. Netanel Hasson, a resident of Kiryat Malachi, told Walla! News: "With my own eyes I saw the missile enter the house. I'm all trembling."
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"Doesn't stay the same." Shalom Rotban (Photo: documentation on social networks according to section 27A of the Copyright Law)
"All the glass in the adjacent apartments shattered," added Elisha Peled, who lives on the street where the rocket fell. "There was a very loud boom. I saw the news at home and the whole living room shook. Vases fell and shattered. An earthquake." Amnon Halevi, a shop owner in the area, joined in. "Dozens of residents have gathered here - something like this the city has not yet known and it continues," he said.
The apartment in Kiryat Malachi, some time after the injury, 2012 (Photo: Dror Einav)
"There was a lot of destruction." Shalom Rotban (Photo: documentation on social networks according to section 27A of the Copyright Law)
Rotban had been missing for two years and there was grave fear for his life. About a month ago, he was seen walking on a road near Amman and the Jordanian residents who found him brought him to a mental hospital. There, an Arab-Israeli volunteer realized it was Israel and managed to contact his family.
The volunteer at the hospital, Kamal Dib al-Qalat, told Walla! Because the head of his department told him about the young man who was transferred to them, who doesn't communicate with the medical staff and they don't even know his name. "I took a piece of paper, wrote a few lines in Hebrew and he started writing back to me," the volunteer said. "He wrote me his name and then his father's name and all sorts of other things."
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