Mary Ann De Vera, known as Michelle, remained with the woman she cared for in their Tel Aviv apartment instead of going to a shelter. When a missile fired from Iran struck nearby, Rachel survived with a scratch on her forehead. Michelle was killed. Three families are now mourningGabi Shihor had a bad feeling about the building where her mother Rachel lived, on Yehuda Halevi Street in Tel Aviv. During the war with Iran in June, Rachel – who has limited mobility – had been sleeping in a nearby public shelter with her caregiver, Mary Ann De Vera, whom everyone called Michelle.This time, Gabi managed to find them a sublet with a safe room, but they had not yet moved in when the Iranian missile struck near their apartment late Saturday night. Rachel survived by a miracle. Michelle, 32, was killed."I told Michelle: when there's a siren, it's okay, go to the shelter in the building next door, especially if Mom is already in bed," Gabi said in an interview with Haaretz. When the siren sounded shortly after 10 P.M., Rachel was asleep in her bed, but Michelle did not leave. Instead, she went to the apartment's inner hallway – where she and Rachel sometimes sheltered during sirens – and continued a phone conversation with her husband, Ernie. The explosion cut the call short.Bar PelegVideo: Tomer Applebaum"My mom kept asking, 'Where's Michelle, where's Michelle,'" Gabi said. "At first I said she was in another hospital. I didn't know what to say. When I finally told my mother, she received it with a kind of strange calm. Only later did it sink in. Since then it comes in waves – suddenly it floods back and we both cry. I believe it's still a process."The state of IsraelHaaretz daily briefing: News & analysisGabi's eyes filled with tears. "I don't have enough words to describe her," she said. "The first time Michelle met my mother, my mom said to her: Why did you come to this country? It's a country of wars. Two months later, October 7 happened. She was with us for two and a half years, and from the first moment I couldn't believe how lucky we were. She's the best person I know. We became very close very quickly. I treated her like family.""We are all in mourning"Mary Ann De Vera had lived her entire life in Pangasinan province in the Philippines before arriving in Israel in 2019. She came to Be'er Sheva, to the home of Doris Gorin, 89, who had immigrated to Israel from New York that same year with a small dog named Wally.According to Doris' daughters, Barbara and Janice, their mother had been independent and did not want a caregiver. But worsening eyesight convinced them she needed help.Barbara vividly remembers Michelle's first meeting with their mother."When the door opened, she walked up and hugged her, and my mother hugged her back. I immediately knew she would be wonderful. They hugged for a long time. I felt the chemistry," she said. "They fell in love with each other, and she became like a surrogate granddaughter."During the COVID-19 pandemic, when Doris fell ill, Michelle was advised by the daughters and the caregiving agency to leave for a while."But she refused," Janice said. "She insisted on staying with her through six weeks of illness. She didn't leave her side."Michelle cared for Doris until she died in 2021. At the funeral, the daughters recalled, she said: "Goodbye until we meet again, and then I'll take care of you again."In recent days the sisters had been scanning news sites, and when they saw that no one was telling Michelle's story, they decided to approach the media themselves."In the news they only write that a Filipina was killed, and we wanted to say – she wasn't just a caregiver, she was a very special soul and a wonderful person. We want her to be given respect," Barbara said. "We're shaken by the news of her death; it's hard for us to process. We're all in mourning."A day after the missile strike, Rachel – who was lightly injured – was discharged from the hospital to a hotel. Her home had become a heap of rubble.The blast waves were felt hundreds of meters away, though the military said the explosion itself was not unusually strong. According to a senior officer who worked at the scene, the extensive damage occurred because the missile struck the road, as had happened during the previous war in Ramat Gan and the Ramat Aviv neighborhood of Tel Aviv."In a direct hit, the structure absorbs most of the blast," he explained. "Here it was swallowed into the ground but also spread across more buildings."At the time of the strike the building was empty of residents, who had evacuated to protected spaces – except for Rachel and Michelle."An elderly population can't get down to shelters, even when there's advance warning," the officer said, noting that he had worked at many impact sites in central Israel over the past year.The strike immediately caused part of the building to collapse. The entire right side, including Rachel's apartment, began to give way, exposing the stairwell. According to several professionals, the fact that Michelle was standing while Rachel was lying in bed may also have proved fatal in that moment.On Rachel Shihor's forehead – she is a former philosophy lecturer at a university and the author of five books, two of them works of prose – is a scratch, a souvenir from the ceiling that collapsed onto her.From the hotel where she was relocated after leaving the hospital, she described calmly and in measured words the time she spent trapped under the rubble. A sentence she had once read in a book by Simone de Beauvoir returned to her in those moments."I'm no longer afraid of death. I thought about that sentence," she said."The ceiling was on top of me. I was inside a kind of pocket. At first I thought, this can't be happening, but there was a crack and I saw that there was air. Through it I could even see my wardrobe."When she felt the ceiling pressing on her forehead, Rachel said she managed to wedge a book between her forehead and the concrete. She searched for Michelle and tried to call out to her, but had no voice. The bond between them had been close and deep."We had imaginary comic characters, as if we were living inside literature. She entered the world of my books," Rachel said, also recalling Michelle's fondness for the Filipino television series she watched.Demolition in record timeTwo large Ficus trees had stood in front of the old building on Yehuda Halevi Street. When it was built in the 1930s, no one had thought about designing shelters, let alone reinforced safe rooms inside apartments.The missile strike left only the charred trunks of the once-enormous trees.The municipality decided to demolish the building immediately.That afternoon Ernie, Michelle's husband, arrived at the site. He also works in a home in the neighborhood. With him came two of Michelle's friends, a representative of an organization assisting Filipinos in Israel, a representative from the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, and a man named Bentzi, who had never met Michelle."She cared for my father for a few weeks when his regular caregiver traveled abroad, and he became very attached to her, and to Ernie," he said.Ernie and those accompanying him searched for a purple backpack where, they said, Michelle kept all her important belongings – money, jewelry, passports and documents.All day long tractors came and went, loading rubble from the building onto trucks – an entire world and lifetime that would be taken to the so-called Triangle area of Arab towns in central Israel and crushed.Hours passed without anyone helping Michelle's relatives even stand nearby and look over the rubble in the hope of finding something.Eventually, a tweet requesting help on X prompted two deputy mayors to intervene and demand assistance for the widower, who stood stunned, tears in his eyes, facing the destruction. Only then was one suitcase found buried in the rubble, containing Michelle's clothes. Later a small waist pouch was also located. The purple backpack disappeared – perhaps forever.It is hard not to think that if they had been told to come earlier, something more might have been saved: a memory of the woman who had been there.מזוודה אחת אותרה וחולצה רגע לפני שכף השופל ירדה עליה. ממש כך

עכשיו גם איתרו בהריסות מה שהיה פעם חדרה עוד פאוצ' ואולי יש עוד

מזל שהיו מי שקראו את הציוץ הזה והקריאה לעזרה וסייעו

תודה רבה לאסף זמיר, מיטל להבי וגם לג'וי מסל"ע ולליקו ממחלקת מבצעים שסייעו ובעיקר לא התעלמו מהםShow moreבאתר ההרס בתל אביב ניסו כל הבוקר דיירים מהבניין לאסוף את מה שנותר מהציוד שלהם. העירייה החליטה להרוס את הבניין בשל סכנה בטיחותית בו, הדיירים ביקשו לנבור בהריסות. חלק קיבלו אישור, אחרים לא.

עכשיו האלמן וחברות של מישל שנהרגה הגיעו לחפש בייאוש חפצים יקרי ערך שלה ולא מאפשרים להם.Michelle Mary Ann De Vera – who could have left Rachel but chose to stay by her side – is the tenth caregiver killed since October 7 while staying with the person she was caring for. In several cases, the patients themselves were also murdered.The Tel Aviv municipality said in response: "This building was directly damaged by the blast from a missile strike. The force of the impact caused significant structural damage to the building's frame, creating an immediate risk of collapse. According to the determination of the city engineer and professional officials at the scene, any entry into the building posed a real danger to life and risk to nearby structures. Therefore, after many consultations among all professional bodies, it was decided to complete the demolition of the building without the possibility of removing equipment or personal belongings from the apartments, in order to prevent serious risk to human life."

Mary Ann De Vera, known as Michelle, remained with the woman she cared for in their Tel Aviv apartment instead of going to a shelter. When a missile fired from Iran struck nearby, Rachel survived with a scratch on her forehead. Michelle was killed. Three families are now mourningGabi Shihor had a bad feeling about the building where her mother Rachel lived, on Yehuda Halevi Street in Tel Aviv. During the war with Iran in June, Rachel – who has limited mobility – had been sleeping in a nearby public shelter with her caregiver, Mary Ann De Vera, whom everyone called Michelle.This time, Gabi managed to find them a sublet with a safe room, but they had not yet moved in when the Iranian missile struck near their apartment late Saturday night. Rachel survived by a miracle. Michelle, 32, was killed."I told Michelle: when there's a siren, it's okay, go to the shelter in the building next door, especially if Mom is already in bed," Gabi said in an interview with Haaretz. When the siren sounded shortly after 10 P.M., Rachel was asleep in her bed, but Michelle did not leave. Instead, she went to the apartment's inner hallway – where she and Rachel sometimes sheltered during sirens – and continued a phone conversation with her husband, Ernie. The explosion cut the call short.Bar PelegVideo: Tomer Applebaum"My mom kept asking, 'Where's Michelle, where's Michelle,'" Gabi said. "At first I said she was in another hospital. I didn't know what to say. When I finally told my mother, she received it with a kind of strange calm. Only later did it sink in. Since then it comes in waves – suddenly it floods back and we both cry. I believe it's still a process."The state of IsraelHaaretz daily briefing: News & analysisGabi's eyes filled with tears. "I don't have enough words to describe her," she said. "The first time Michelle met my mother, my mom said to her: Why did you come to this country? It's a country of wars. Two months later, October 7 happened. She was with us for two and a half years, and from the first moment I couldn't believe how lucky we were. She's the best person I know. We became very close very quickly. I treated her like family.""We are all in mourning"Mary Ann De Vera had lived her entire life in Pangasinan province in the Philippines before arriving in Israel in 2019. She came to Be'er Sheva, to the home of Doris Gorin, 89, who had immigrated to Israel from New York that same year with a small dog named Wally.According to Doris' daughters, Barbara and Janice, their mother had been independent and did not want a caregiver. But worsening eyesight convinced them she needed help.Barbara vividly remembers Michelle's first meeting with their mother."When the door opened, she walked up and hugged her, and my mother hugged her back. I immediately knew she would be wonderful. They hugged for a long time. I felt the chemistry," she said. "They fell in love with each other, and she became like a surrogate granddaughter."During the COVID-19 pandemic, when Doris fell ill, Michelle was advised by the daughters and the caregiving agency to leave for a while."But she refused," Janice said. "She insisted on staying with her through six weeks of illness. She didn't leave her side."Michelle cared for Doris until she died in 2021. At the funeral, the daughters recalled, she said: "Goodbye until we meet again, and then I'll take care of you again."In recent days the sisters had been scanning news sites, and when they saw that no one was telling Michelle's story, they decided to approach the media themselves."In the news they only write that a Filipina was killed, and we wanted to say – she wasn't just a caregiver, she was a very special soul and a wonderful person. We want her to be given respect," Barbara said. "We're shaken by the news of her death; it's hard for us to process. We're all in mourning."A day after the missile strike, Rachel – who was lightly injured – was discharged from the hospital to a hotel. Her home had become a heap of rubble.The blast waves were felt hundreds of meters away, though the military said the explosion itself was not unusually strong. According to a senior officer who worked at the scene, the extensive damage occurred because the missile struck the road, as had happened during the previous war in Ramat Gan and the Ramat Aviv neighborhood of Tel Aviv."In a direct hit, the structure absorbs most of the blast," he explained. "Here it was swallowed into the ground but also spread across more buildings."At the time of the strike the building was empty of residents, who had evacuated to protected spaces – except for Rachel and Michelle."An elderly population can't get down to shelters, even when there's advance warning," the officer said, noting that he had worked at many impact sites in central Israel over the past year.The strike immediately caused part of the building to collapse. The entire right side, including Rachel's apartment, began to give way, exposing the stairwell. According to several professionals, the fact that Michelle was standing while Rachel was lying in bed may also have proved fatal in that moment.On Rachel Shihor's forehead – she is a former philosophy lecturer at a university and the author of five books, two of them works of prose – is a scratch, a souvenir from the ceiling that collapsed onto her.From the hotel where she was relocated after leaving the hospital, she described calmly and in measured words the time she spent trapped under the rubble. A sentence she had once read in a book by Simone de Beauvoir returned to her in those moments."I'm no longer afraid of death. I thought about that sentence," she said."The ceiling was on top of me. I was inside a kind of pocket. At first I thought, this can't be happening, but there was a crack and I saw that there was air. Through it I could even see my wardrobe."When she felt the ceiling pressing on her forehead, Rachel said she managed to wedge a book between her forehead and the concrete. She searched for Michelle and tried to call out to her, but had no voice. The bond between them had been close and deep."We had imaginary comic characters, as if we were living inside literature. She entered the world of my books," Rachel said, also recalling Michelle's fondness for the Filipino television series she watched.Demolition in record timeTwo large Ficus trees had stood in front of the old building on Yehuda Halevi Street. When it was built in the 1930s, no one had thought about designing shelters, let alone reinforced safe rooms inside apartments.The missile strike left only the charred trunks of the once-enormous trees.The municipality decided to demolish the building immediately.That afternoon Ernie, Michelle's husband, arrived at the site. He also works in a home in the neighborhood. With him came two of Michelle's friends, a representative of an organization assisting Filipinos in Israel, a representative from the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, and a man named Bentzi, who had never met Michelle."She cared for my father for a few weeks when his regular caregiver traveled abroad, and he became very attached to her, and to Ernie," he said.Ernie and those accompanying him searched for a purple backpack where, they said, Michelle kept all her important belongings – money, jewelry, passports and documents.All day long tractors came and went, loading rubble from the building onto trucks – an entire world and lifetime that would be taken to the so-called Triangle area of Arab towns in central Israel and crushed.Hours passed without anyone helping Michelle's relatives even stand nearby and look over the rubble in the hope of finding something.Eventually, a tweet requesting help on X prompted two deputy mayors to intervene and demand assistance for the widower, who stood stunned, tears in his eyes, facing the destruction. Only then was one suitcase found buried in the rubble, containing Michelle's clothes. Later a small waist pouch was also located. The purple backpack disappeared – perhaps forever.It is hard not to think that if they had been told to come earlier, something more might have been saved: a memory of the woman who had been there.מזוודה אחת אותרה וחולצה רגע לפני שכף השופל ירדה עליה. ממש כך

עכשיו גם איתרו בהריסות מה שהיה פעם חדרה עוד פאוצ' ואולי יש עוד

מזל שהיו מי שקראו את הציוץ הזה והקריאה לעזרה וסייעו

תודה רבה לאסף זמיר, מיטל להבי וגם לג'וי מסל"ע ולליקו ממחלקת מבצעים שסייעו ובעיקר לא התעלמו מהםShow moreבאתר ההרס בתל אביב ניסו כל הבוקר דיירים מהבניין לאסוף את מה שנותר מהציוד שלהם. העירייה החליטה להרוס את הבניין בשל סכנה בטיחותית בו, הדיירים ביקשו לנבור בהריסות. חלק קיבלו אישור, אחרים לא.

עכשיו האלמן וחברות של מישל שנהרגה הגיעו לחפש בייאוש חפצים יקרי ערך שלה ולא מאפשרים להם.Michelle Mary Ann De Vera – who could have left Rachel but chose to stay by her side – is the tenth caregiver killed since October 7 while staying with the person she was caring for. In several cases, the patients themselves were also murdered.The Tel Aviv municipality said in response: "This building was directly damaged by the blast from a missile strike. The force of the impact caused significant structural damage to the building's frame, creating an immediate risk of collapse. According to the determination of the city engineer and professional officials at the scene, any entry into the building posed a real danger to life and risk to nearby structures. Therefore, after many consultations among all professional bodies, it was decided to complete the demolition of the building without the possibility of removing equipment or personal belongings from the apartments, in order to prevent serious risk to human life."