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8-year-old Ukrainian girl in Israel for cancer treatment killed in Iranian missile attack

Four members of Anastasia Borik’s family were also killed by the Iranian missile strike in Bat Yam.

The maternity center at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel, on July 15, 2023. Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images.
The maternity center at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel, on July 15, 2023. Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images.

Five members of a Ukrainian family, including an 8-year-old girl undergoing cancer treatment at an Israeli hospital, were among the nine people killed by an Iranian missile impact on a Tel Aviv suburb this week, a city spokesperson said on Wednesday.

The dead in Sunday’s attack in Bat Yam included Anastasia (Nastia) Borik, an 8-year-old first grader who was being treated for leukemia at Sheba Medical Center’s oncology unit.

She was killed along with her mother Maria Peshkurova, 31, her grandmother Olena (Yelena) Peshkurova, 54, and her cousins Konstantin Totvich, 10 and Ilya Peshkurov, 15.

The family had come to Israel from the Ukrainian city of Odessa as tourists in December 2022 for her life-saving medical treatment.

Four Israelis were also killed in the pre-dawn missile attack. It was the single most lethal Iranian strike on Israel over the last six days.

24 people have been killed and hundreds injured in more than 400 Iranian missile attacks across Israel.

Etgar Lefkovits, an award-winning international journalist, is an Israel correspondent and a feature news writer for JNS. A native of Chicago, he has two decades of experience in journalism, having served as Jerusalem correspondent in one of the world’s most demanding positions. He is currently based in Tel Aviv.
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