Last February, after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Rabbi Mendel Moscowitz decided to quickly flee from the northeastern city of Kharkiv to southern Israel, where he and his family finally found safety -- or so they thought. Their peace was disrupted on October 7, when Hamas militants carried out the deadliest ever attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed around 18,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the besieged Palestinian territory. With limited time to decide what to do, Moscowitz and his family rushed to a place that had provided shelter to them before -- a Jewish "rescue village" on the shores of Lake Balaton in Hungary. "It is important in these hard times to remember what's really important. The really important thing is family," Moscowitz tells AFP. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES