At 2:00 AM EST, I saw online that there was a tzeva adom (red alert) siren in Ashdod awakening its citizens, after which they had only 15 seconds to enter the nearest bomb shelter. I immediately called one of my closest friends, a woman who babysat my children when we lived in Israel and became like a sister to me. She answered with a quivering voice, and told me that all night long she and her husband had to wake up her two small sleeping children, and—seven months pregnant herself—run down the cold stone stairs to their building’s basement bomb shelter. And by the time they returned and calmed the children from their terrified screams, they had to do it all over again.

Mira and her three children didn’t make it to the stairwell quickly enough

And they are the lucky ones.

Mira Scharf was not. A young woman of 25 with three small children, she and her husband, Shmuel, were active in educational work in the Jewish community of New Delhi, India.

Last night they were in the quaint town of Kiryat Malachi, a place that had never been targeted before, a place therefore not as well prepared for the magnitude of hate and destruction that was to rain down upon them.

She and her three children didn’t make it to the stairwell quickly enough. Mira was murdered. Her husband was seriously injured, and at least one of her children is in critical condition.

Another one of the victims, Ahron Smadga, finished pulling his own family to safety in the building’s stairwell, and went to help the Scharf family with their little ones. Smagda and his wife waited for 14 years for children of their own when they were finally blessed with twins, and recently, eight years later, were blessed with a baby girl. Smagda served in the Israeli army, and was well liked throughout his community. Children knew him as the “candy man,” passing out sweets in return for good behavior.

The third victim was 22-year-old Yitzchak Amselam. At this point, precious little is known about him. I hope to learn more about this young man who was taken from us.

We are no strangers to loss. We are no strangers to tragedy. But we have, and we will, survive and strengthen and overcome

Exactly four years ago we mourned the tragic loss of Gabi and Rivky Holtzberg, who were brutally murdered along with four other innocent Jews in their Chabad House in Mumbai. We are no strangers to loss. We are no strangers to tragedy. But we have, and we will, survive and strengthen and overcome.

Our brothers and sisters are being relentlessly attacked. And the pain is unbearable. But I know that every single prayer pierces the heavens, and somehow, cosmically, in ways that you and I might never know, they bring peace and support to the suffering our brethren are experiencing.

Here are some ways my colleagues here at Chabad.org have put together for us to channel our grief and pain into good and positivity.

Let’s continue to pray for the immediate recovery of Mira’s beloved husband and children:

Shmuel ben Chaya Sarah

Yosef Yitzchak ben Mira Rut

Chana bas Mira Rut

Geulah bas Mira Rut

And let’s beseech G‑d that all our brethren in Israel remain safe and secure in His land, and that He bless our brave and beloved soldiers with success in their humanitarian mission of protecting innocent lives, and that they, too, emerge unscathed.