After the hostilities with Gaza broke out earlier this month, 88-year-old Uri Kimhi gave up on watching television from his favorite couch, instead of keeping within hobbling distance of the bomb shelter in his home, which saved the Israeli widower when a Palestinian rocket struck on May 12, reducing his living room to rubble.
A neighbor who rushed in, yelling "You okay, Uri?" and fearing the worst, found Kimhi smiling amid the dust and debris.
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88-year old Uri Kimhi emerges from his bomb shelter after his house takes a direct hit from a rocket launched in Gaza
(Photo: Reuters)
"There was pressure on the (bomb shelter) door, and flames managed to get through," Kimhi later said in an interview. "I wasn't nervous because I've heard a lot of explosions in my life.
"Bowed by age and walking with a cane, Kimhi is a retired farmer, a veteran of three Israeli-Arab wars, Uri is a long-time resident of Ashkelon, which, at 43 km (26 miles) from Gaza, has often come under rocket fire from Palestinian militants.
During the recent wave of fighting, Ashkelon was targeted by hundreds of rockets causing death and destruction in the Southern city.
Though unimpressed with Friday's Egyptian-mediated halt to the worst Israeli-Palestinian fighting in years, he was upbeat about the future for himself and his family.
"I don't believe in the ceasefire, but I will go back," Kimhi said. "The house that was destroyed by the rocket will be rebuilt and we will continue living in this house until we reach the age of 120," Uri said.