Leadnaija
Israelis on Saturday described the fear, chaos and confusion as several Iranian missiles slammed into houses and apartments in central Israel overnight, causing widespread destruction, killing three people and wounding dozens.
Warning sirens sent millions of people rushing for safe rooms and bomb shelters as Iran fired several waves of missiles in response to Israeli strikes on its military leadership and nuclear program. While the IDF said most were intercepted, several missiles — apparently armed with large explosive warheads — slammed into homes in Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan and Rishon Lezion.
“We shut the door, started watching the news through the computer, and suddenly there was a boom so loud that the whole building teetered,” Tali Horesh, resident of a Tel Aviv high-rise that was hit Friday night, told the Ynet news site.
“A few minutes later we opened the door because the smoke detector went off,” she said. “The entire living room was full of smoke, and we went back to the safe room.”
Horesh and her family remained in the safe room for some two hours before rescuers managed to reach them, Ynet said.
“On the lower floors the destruction was massive,” she said. “Running water, doors tossed aside, a mess. And the lobby was totally ruined.”
Rescuers, including hundreds of IDF Home Front Command soldiers, firefighters, police officers, medics, engineers and sniffer dogs remained at the site for hours, ensuring that no one was trapped in the building.
Col. (res.) Michael David, who leads the Home Front’s Tel Aviv command, told Ynet that his forces were trained to handle such situations and received reinforcements, but said: “This is an event of a magnitude we haven’t seen in the past.”
“We’re getting a picture of… the people who live in the building, to know if there is anyone missing or trapped. It’s a Sisyphic task that can take hours, especially when we’re talking about very high buildings, with many hundreds of tenants,” he said. “We won’t leave until we’ve made sure we didn’t leave any resident behind.”
That barrage impacted several areas of Tel Aviv and nearby Ramat Gan. A total of 63 people were injured, including a woman who was critically hurt and later succumbed to her wounds.
Another barrage in the early hours of Saturday morning hit a residential area in Rishon Lezion, also near Tel Aviv. A man, identified as Yisrael Aloni, 73, and another woman were killed, and at least 20 people were wounded.
A three-month-old baby was among those rescued from the rubble.
“I pulled her into my arms and then gave her to the first police officer I saw, and then started lifting out all the other family members,” Fire and Rescue Service Captain Idan Chen told the Walla news site.
“As we were doing this, there were people trapped in the home above and next door — and opposite there was a fire — and I’m trying to manage the incident amid complete destruction,” he said.
