Hamas Rocket Kills Indian Woman In Israel Who Was On Video Call With Her Husband

One of the people who died from the rockets that Hamas militants have rained on Israel is an Indian woman who was in the city of Ashkelon as a caregiver for a differently aged Israeli woman. Soumya Santhosh, 31, died Tuesday when the house she was in suffered a direct hit by a rocket.

Tragically, the rocket slammed into the house while she was on a video call with her husband back in India. Santhosh, who hails from the southern Indian state of Kerala, had been living in Ashkelon for the past seven years. She was narrating to her husband the situation in the city when a shell blasted through the home, reported NDTV.

"My brother heard a huge sound during the video call. Suddenly the phone got disconnected. We immediately contacted fellow Malayalees (as people from Kerala are known; the local language is Malayalam) working there and we came to know about the incident," her brother-in-law told reporters.

She last visited India four years ago. The couple has a nine-year-old son who lives with his father in India.

Ashkelon, which borders the Gaza Strip, has come under rocket fire following an escalation in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terror group. So far six people have died in Israel from the rocket attacks, and Hamas on Wednesday fired a guided anti-tank missile at an Israeli jeep near the northern Gaza border, killing at least one person and injuring three others. The Israeli military said it is conducting strikes on targets in northern Gaza to suppress the attacks.

Residents in Ashkelon had been ordered to remain indoors for parts of the day because of the rocket attacks. Though sirens sent many into bomb shelters, Santhosh and her employer could not reach its safety in time. Their house lacked a bomb shelter.

Her employer, a woman in her eighties, was also seriously hurt and has been hospitalized, reports said.

The Washington Post reported that the rocket blasted its way through the front wall of the one-story home, leaving behind broken plaster, furniture and a walker.

Reports quoted Ashkelon's Mayor Tomer Glam as saying that a quarter of the city's residents do not have access to a protected area in case of rocket attacks. He said there were houses from the 1960s where there is no basic protection.

Ron Malka, Israel's ambassador to India, confirmed Santhosh's death Wednesday. "I just spoke to the family of Ms Soumya Santosh, the victim of the Hamas terrorist strike. I expressed my sorrow for their unfortunate loss and extended my condolences on behalf of the state of Israel. The whole country is mourning her loss and we are here for them," he tweeted. He added that his heart goes out to her son Adon "who has lost his mother at such a young age and will have to grow up without her."

India's external affairs ministry said it is taking steps to fly her body home.

Fighting between Israel and Hamas intensifiedTuesday, the latter fired hundreds of rockets into Israel. "We fired rockets at Ashkelon following an Israeli attack and an attack on a house west of Gaza City,” a spokesman for Hamas’s military wing was quoted by The Washington Post. "If Israel continues to attack, we will turn Ashkelon into hell," he added."

Another woman was killed in a rocket strike Tuesday in the city of Rishon LeZion.