In familiar wartime routines, residents in central Israel spent Saturday repeatedly moving between homes and shelters as Iran launched missile salvos, the Associated Press reported. The attacks came after the U.S. and Israel launched a major attack on Iran, and they continued through the day with repeated air-raid sirens.
In Tel Aviv’s Jaffa neighborhood, a mixed Arab-Jewish area, more than 100 people including Muslim families with young children, religious Jews from a nearby seminary, and at least a dozen dogs shared a crowded public shelter underneath a park. Some people spread out on mattresses they brought into the shelter and played cards, others shared snacks, while observant Muslims were fasting for Ramadan and still had to break the daily fast for iftar in the bomb shelter.
Idit Cohen, who lives near the park, described the situation as something people expected even if they did not want it to happen. She said the emergency also showed how the community could come together, and she said her son received an emergency summons for reserve military duty; she added that a stranger in the shelter offered to drive him to the base despite not driving on Saturdays as a religious Jew, according to the report.
Cohen also described the prolonged strain of staying on alert, saying it was a nightmare as people became increasingly frustrated and tired, with families with babies and young children present alongside elderly residents who could not keep running all day. Igor Libenson, a construction worker and father of two, said his family was mostly tired from the constant moving back and forth, adding that his sons are 4 and 7 and that they had experienced similar conditions during a 12-day war with Iran last June.
Other residents described coping through faith and reflection while in shelters. The report said some religious Jews sang psalms in the shelter, and Maya Tutian, a Tel Aviv resident in a public shelter in the northern part of the city, said people were looking at the situation in the long term and hoping for resolution of problems beyond the immediate suffering. Tutian also said the Iranian regime was a threat not only to Tel Aviv residents but to the entire world.
The episode unfolded against a backdrop of repeated regional hostilities that have become part of routine life in Israel for many residents. The report said that for the past 2 1/2 years, Israelis have dealt with conflict involving Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen, as well as a 12-day war last June against Iran.
Israel’s rescue service, Magen David Adom, said late Saturday that a woman in the Tel Aviv area died after being injured in an Iranian strike. It said it treated at least 90 people with light injuries across Israel, as well as one man who was seriously injured. By nightfall, Israel’s army said dozens of missiles had been launched at Israel, and Israeli police and emergency services said several people were lightly wounded while the military intercepted many incoming missiles.
The report also highlighted limits in shelter protection. While new buildings in Israel are required to include reinforced safe rooms meant to withstand rockets, Iran was firing stronger ballistic missiles, and the report said shelter access remained severely lacking in poorer neighborhoods and towns, especially in Arab areas and rural parts of the country. It cited a local advocacy group, the Negev Coexistence Forum, saying more than two-thirds of Israel’s Bedouin minority have no access to shelters, and it said Bedouin families resorted last summer to building DIY shelters from available materials, including buried steel containers and repurposed construction debris.
Across the day, Israel’s authorities responded to the renewed threat by placing the country on high alert. The report said Israel issued a nationwide warning and canceled school and most gatherings across the country, as residents dealt with sirens and stayed in shelters to wait out incoming attacks.