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Iranian attacks kill at least three people as a few warheads get past Israeli air defenses. As the rest of the family considered where to spend the night, Sveta's four-year-old daughter was asleep on the floor outside their destroyed apartment building at midnight on Friday. A missile from the first Iranian attack on Tel Aviv had landed a few blocks away, injuring at least 16 people, killing at least one, and causing damage to hundreds of shops and homes in this peaceful neighborhood. The 37-year-old was sanguine about her own losses, and backed the government decision to attack Iran even though it had so quickly cost her family their home. “I support it completely,” she said as her older daughter stroked their chihuahua. “This is nothing compared to what they will be able to do if they get their hand on the A-bomb [nuclear weapons]. We can’t afford for the Iranians to get them. “We tell [our daughters] that as long as we go to the shelter together, everything is OK. The damage in the house is just material things.” In a residential area of Ramat Gan town east of Tel Aviv, the family's street was crowded with emergency personnel sifting through broken glass and other debris to reach the directly damaged building. It had been reduced to layers of twisted steel and concrete rubble, and an apparent unharmed cabinet was hanging incongruously from the first-floor ruins. Two hours after the explosion, rescue teams were still searching through the wreckage for survivors, as a drone buzzed overhead. Bar, 31, begged to be allowed back into her building to pick up some items for her children at the edge of the police cordon. It was still standing, beyond the crumpled remains of several cars, but emergency workers said it was too dangerous to enter. Because they were staying with her parents, the family was able to get away from the bombing. Bar recognised her home on the news as reporters arrived at the impact site, and after the all-clear came back to check on their apartment. She stated, "They told me I can't go in because of the damage." “I’m anxious and in shock, and the kids are very scared. We have nowhere to go, no home to go back to.” Carrying heavy backpacks and suitcases, people from nearby buildings passed by. Because the city government had declared a mass casualty event and was only providing camp beds in a nearby school, the majority were leaving to stay with friends and family. Orly, 27, was helping a friend clean up broken glass from a friend's beauty salon a few hundred meters down the road. “You see what a ballistic missile does? She stated, "We are here hundreds of meters away." You felt it because we were inside the shelter when it happened. I’ve been through a couple of wars now and I knew this was different.” Before dawn, two additional waves of missiles arrived, and each time, a few of Iran's warheads broke through layers of Israeli and allied air defenses to strike central Israel. At least three people were killed across Israel and more than 40 injured, emergency services reported early on Saturday. It was the most intense and deadly few hours inside Israel since the Hamas cross-border attacks on 7 October 2023 that triggered the war in Gaza, but the toll was dwarfed by the damage that Israel inflicted on Iran. In central Tel Aviv, Elia Digma, 18, lives close to a high-rise residential building that was struck in the first round. He felt the impact even in an underground shelter and had come to inspect the damage. “It’s a miracle only five people were hurt here,” he said. "Everything shook, and it was a hell of a boom." Elia stated that seeing the aftermath of a missile striking the center of his city was shocking and that he was prepared for additional attacks. However, like Sveta, he was certain that the preventative strike against Iran was required. “We are doing what we need to defend ourselves,” Elia said. “The Bible says if someone comes to kill you, you must kill them first. We are ready for anything and everything that will bring quiet.”
