In Jerusalem, a city rarely disturbed by air attacks, the sound of the interceptions rolled like thunder. Air raid sirens wailed; people gathered on balconies or pressed their faces against windows, while balls of fire lit up the sky.
The streets were quiet Sunday morning. Traders said some people had come to buy supplies of food and water. “It was terrifying. Terrifying,” said Mari James, 27, as she left a store with bulging bags. “I think I do this to calm down,” she said. “I don’t know what else to do.”
Israeli leaders had spent days foreshadowing the likelihood of an Iranian attack, following Israel’s April 1 targeting of two Iranian generals in the Syrian capital, Damascus. The military jammed GPS signals in parts of Tel Aviv on Thursday without warning, causing havoc on the roads when Google Maps and Waze suddenly placed drivers in Cairo or Beirut.
On Friday, rumors of an impending strike circulated throughout an anxious nation.
In the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem, Abu Karam, 45, said it was as if the entire neighborhood had come out to watch the attacks early Sunday. “Everyone was standing,” he said.
“You can’t watch the sky go up in flames without being afraid,” he added. “What do you tell your children? They can’t understand what’s happening.
Israel’s Home Front Command, a branch of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responsible for emergency preparedness, said Sunday that Israelis no longer need to stay near protected rooms or shelters. But it left in place restrictions on large gatherings and a ban on educational activities such as school trips.
Almost all drones and ballistic and cruise missiles sent by Iran were intercepted, said Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesman.
However, one of the few that fell on Israeli territory appears to have seriously injured one of the country’s most vulnerable people: Amina Hassouna, 7, from Israel’s long-neglected Bedouin community. She was injured by a shrapnel to the head, according to Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s national emergency service.
Reached by telephone on Sunday, a friend of Amina’s father, Farhan Daabouh, said she was still in critical condition.
Because Israel does not recognize many Bedouin villages, communities are often prohibited from building permanent structures, leaving them with little cover in the event of air attacks.
“We are the Bedouins, we have no shelter to go to,” Daabouh said. “The State of Israel, since we are its citizens, should provide us with all security measures, but this is not the case. »
Elsewhere in Israel, MDA ambulance and paramedics treated 31 people in mild condition with symptoms of anxiety or injuries caused while seeking shelter, the organization said.
Some Israelis said they invited friends over as soon as news of an impending attack broke, preferring the company of loved ones to news of disaster. Many, however, slept through the night – some because they did not check the information before going to bed, others because they said they felt they had no control over the result.
In the ancient port city of Jaffa, Anastasia, 44, a mother of three from Russia, said she put her cellphone away for the night before putting her daughter to bed with a story.
“It was only today that I read that many people do not sleep at night,” she said, refusing to give her last name to protect her family back in Russia.
That same family was the first to message her, saying they had read the news and wanted to know if she was safe.
“It doesn’t help to read the news anyway,” she said. “Once you wake up in the morning and see that the sun is shining, you know it’s better to move on with your life.”
Outside, the sound of Israeli fighter jets and reconnaissance drones mingled with birdsong, while fishing boats traced trails in the blue sea.
Shaily Niv, 48, a therapist at a nearby hospital, described the nightly attacks as the latest in a series of troubling developments in Israel that have left her feeling out of control.
” We can not do anything with it. I find it impossible to listen to the news and coordinate my life accordingly, so I don’t do it,” she said. She opened her phone Saturday night to see the panic online, and quickly closed it.
“With this government,” she said, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing cabinet, “I expect the worst things anyone can expect.”
washingtonpost
