TAMRA, Israel — A drawer full of clothes, dangling off the rubble that once was the family’s wall. Elaborate plaster crown molding lying in chunks on the floor. Ornate stone pillars smashed to stumps. A car with its windows shattered, a chunk of concrete crushing its roof.

This is the wreckage of the Khatib family home in the northern Israeli village of Tamra, after an Iranian missile struck it and several surrounding houses on Saturday, killing Manar Abu al-Heija Khatib, 45, two of her daughters — Shada, 20, and Hala, 13 — and her sister-in-law, Manar Diab Khatib, 41.

Jewish Agency Chair Doron Almog, along with other representatives from the group and partner organizations, visited the impact site on Thursday before traveling to a nearby mourning gathering for the family at a community center in the city. There, he embraced Raja Khatib, the husband, father and brother-in-law of the slain women, and other members of the family. 

Addressing the mourners, Almog wished for something positive to come out of this intense tragedy. “We have come here to be in pain together with the Khatib family. We are in pain with you,” Almog said, noting his own family’s losses in terror attacks and wars. “There is great pain and loss here. And from that pain, I want us to cultivate partnership, to cultivate love, to cultivate hope.”

He added: “I always say, ‘Total victory’ is not on the battlefield, ‘total victory’ is an exemplary society, one full of peace, one that embraces the weak, one that moves us all forward.”

Speaking to eJewishPhilanthropy shortly afterward, Almog said he intended to pair the community with an American Jewish community — like the long-standing partnerships between Israeli and American towns, as well as the new connections that have been created following the Oct. 7 attacks between American communities and the individual kibbutzim and moshavim that were targeted in the attacks. He noted that similar partnerships have been forged between U.S. Jewish communities and Druze villages, such as one between MetroWest, N.J., and Horfeish.  

“I believe that creating a partnership with a place like Tamra has immense significance in creating a better sense of coexistence,” Almog said. 

A city of nearly 40,000 people in the Lower Galilee, nearly all of whose residents  are Muslim Arabs, Tamra is perhaps best known for its dairy industry. On Israel’s socioeconomic scale, Tamra scored a three out of 10 in the most recent ranking.

Almog said he did not yet know which American Jewish community would be paired with Tamra in such an arrangement. “We’ll know better once we can bring the CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, Eric Fingerhut, and the new chair, [Gary Torgow], since that represents all 146 [North American Jewish communities],” Almog said. He noted that, for now, most American Jewish leaders cannot visit the town due to the general closure of Israeli airspace, but said that once the skies opened, he planned to encourage solidarity missions to Tamra.

The Jewish Agency chairman’s hope for something positive to emerge from the Khatib family’s disaster was echoed by Tamra’s mayor, Musa Abu Rumi, who met with Almog and the other Jewish Agency representatives after the mourning event. 

“I want something good to come from all of the evil that befell Tamra,” he said, noting that Jews and Arabs alike had already visited the village in solidarity after the attack. 

Sitting in a circle of armchairs and couches, Abu Rumi laid out three practical areas where his village could use philanthropic assistance, with the implied hope that Almog could help procure it. 

“We created a temporary ‘resilience center’ in the mosque [after the attack], bringing social workers, educational advisers and psychologists. I didn’t believe it — entire families came. … Every home in Tamra has an acute need for help, and it will have an influence on the future of the village,” he said. “So we immediately started working to turn this resilience center into something permanent. … It will cost us about NIS 7 million ($2 million) to build it and run it.”

Abu Rumi also noted that in the immediate aftermath of the missile strike, first responders who reached the scene found that Manar Khatib still had a pulse when they arrived, but that she had died by the time search-and-rescue teams arrived to clear the debris. Stressing that he did not mean this as criticism of the rescue workers, “who worked in an exemplary manner,” the mayor said Tamra’s own teams may have been able to reach her in time if they’d had the necessary equipment. “If we had a crane, tractors, an excavator — that would help us a lot,” he said. 

The mayor noted that the town was also without a functioning communication system after the strike, as the missile took out power in the area, leaving only a single satellite radio, which he said hampered rescue efforts. 

Making no promises, Almog said that he would see what he could do to assist Tamra, noting the recent launch of a new fund for victims of the Iranian attacks. 

“In addition to what the state needs to provide, we can help — and we will help,” he said.

Ed. note: An earlier version of this report incorrectly identified the American Jewish community that is partnered with Horfeish, Israel.