How I survived 4 days of rocket attacks in Israel. The locals call it “Star Wars”

Every year, usually in May, rockets fly into Israel. Now from the Gaza Strip, then from Lebanon.

I will not delve into the causes of the conflict, since it has a history of 75 years. But the fact is: it remains suitable for every person. Someone gets by with stress, someone loses their home, and someone, unfortunately, dies.

This year there was a particularly strong attack in Israel, which began on the afternoon of May 10th and ended on the evening of May 13th. Several hundred missiles flew at the country per day

Surprisingly, but in these four days. The concert for 40,000 people took place literally under the work of PRO.

about how internal chillat on the beach to the sound of a siren, where to seek shelter and what it is like to see rocket explosions closer and closer in reality, I tell below.

Applications report “arrivals” before the siren. Shelters under the parking lot

It looks like a fortified from a rocket room next to my house

Talk that an attack had begun in Israel occurred a couple of days before the first shelling.

On May 9, terrifying videos and posters of military messages from the Gaza Strip of the group began to be published on Telegram channels with the time and date of the attack. Everything was supposed to start on the same day, but until morning the country was quiet. Declared cause: response to military resonance in this disease called “Shield and Arrow”.

The city was quiet. Only endless publications about the deployed Iron Dome batteries and open bomb shelters indicated that something must be. The information was disappointing: the forces were pulling, including in Tel Aviv, which is located 60 km from the border with Gaza.

“Iron Dome” – the collective name of anti-missile defense systems that choose to automatically detect it, predict the trajectory of an attacking projectile and intercept it as a result of launching a retaliatory missile.

In the afternoon of the same day, I downloaded an application in which there is a sense of waiting time, where a blow is expected. Tzofar used to walk the most.

And an infected hideout map. Yes, my room here itself is one, but it was interesting to see what kind of urban ones you are. The fact is that usually they are not noticed, you need to look specifically.

It turned out that nearby is only two neighborhoods from the house, and it is disguised as a regular parking lot. The entrance is made in a small island a meter high.

Shelters covered the entire country. Even in the win, there are big hills that only play the role of dressing rooms, but are also saved from blast waves.

Against the backdrop of “announcements” of full-time attacks, I used to doomscroll, but nothing happened.

The locals later ironically said that this is always the case: “they promise to launch rockets first in the morning, then in the evening, then at night, and in the end nothing. They are always late.”

But at noon the next day began.

1,500 missiles on Israeli soil in four days

Each push is a new salvo

During such attacks, everything goes to settlements near Gaza.

On May 10, at approximately 12:10, the Tsofar application began issuing new ones every second.

The most eerie was seen as within attack detection time. It’s like an explosive tsunami is approaching my house every second.

In the first hall, traces were found 10 kilometers away, in the second place they were sent 20 kilometers away, and by the fifth week, attacks were discovered that appeared in our quarter, that is, 60 kilometers from the border with Gaza.

Moreover, the application worked better than before the siren.

And so it lasted 40 minutes, the rockets were fired either closer to the city or further away from it.

On average, there were two such “sessions” per day from May 10 to May 14. And all this hundreds unguided missiles without accurate detection, which are launched towards populated areas without regard to military targets.

The strangest thing for me was that the crime was committed during the day or evening, but not at night, which would have been a much more frightening sight.

As they explained to me, most of the formations released from Gaza along the border areas with it are part of sawn pipeline pipes stuffed with homemade explosives and nails. They are extremely bad, that a fifth of them, according to media estimates, fell right in Gaza, killing their own civilians.

Tel Aviv is located in the center of Israel, so only powerful and “high-quality” missiles can fly. Which are already serious reasons for initiating a criminal case.

Stop them with the necessary appropriate application. Therefore, in May, Israel for the first time used a new type of missile defense called the “David’s Sling”. These are rockets larger than those used in the iron dome. The cost of each launch is estimated at $1 million.

It looks like “David’s Sling”

More dangerous missiles, because there were fewer of them than in the border areas.

From 1468 rocketreleased on Israel in four days only two weeks of interception With the sling of David over Tel Aviv. She also activated the defense of Jerusalem, which was also attacked.

The remaining violations stop the assembly of the Dome.

In my area, the sirens worked two days out of four. For the most part, they find that the missiles weren’t detected, but because they might miss debris. But the cold in the soul from this did not become less.

More fear than defeat. Although he was

An Israeli residential building that was destroyed in another rocket attack. Tried to save her husband and didn’t make it to the shelter

Judging by the reports, more than half of the missiles, due to their poor quality, fell outside the country or in fields where no one was. And 20% percent of all fell immediately after the launch in Gaza.

The rest worked out the famous “Iron Dome”, intercepting shells in the sky.

this happens every year, some get shelled, plus or minus calmly. Before the bombing began, my aunt calmly warned me and went to work.

When the next hall pl of my premises, I immediately went to MAMAD, a fortified room in the apartment. My neighbors, on the other hand, calmly talked in the living room and were in no hurry, saying “we have the Iron Dome, everything is fine.”

At the same time, a couple from Poland visited us through Airbnb, they were in Britain at the time of the attack. At home in the evening they said that on the beach no one had hidden in a shelter, at least one of the rockets directly above their heads.

But death cannot be neglected. In the city of Rehovotraketa, it was not possible to find. She got into a residential building and killed an 80-year-old woman who did not have time to get to the shelter.

There were other cases, because of which there were cases, including Gaza, who in Israel went to work.

And on May 12, in a city near Tel Aviv, the Backstreet Boys concert was canceled, and for good reason: a rocket fragment fell on the track not far from the place.

Although the day before, on May 11, another concert for 40,000 people tried. The iron dome worked over people’s heads.

In this life, almost does not freeze

Impossible to work.

All events that originate from features end up with an endless check of passage in Telegram and news sites that, in the nature of time, broadcast events.

The rest of the country did not think to freeze. Schools in the border areas with Gaza were closed for about two days, but nothing more. Even planes stopped flying for only two hours. People came in to land and saw the work of air defense from the window.

But for me it’s all unusual. The last rocket exploded over Tel Aviv so powerfully that glass was cut out in the apartment. And after the announcement of a truce, he does not stay in the house for another week.

I will not draw any conclusions. people call iron dome miraculously, and not just like that.

In most cases, it is desirable that such devices do without miracles.