My friend Naomi was on the bus on her way home when the sirens began wailing throughout Tel Aviv. Her experiences are harrowing.
‘Suddenly our phones were vibrating with alerts, the bus was evacuated and we all had to hide behind the bus shelter,’ she tells me, sobbing.
‘There were two little children cowering next to me and their mum was covering their heads with her arm.’
When, after a while, the rockets stopped, Naomi and the other passengers got back on the bus. Moments later the barrage began again.
‘This time we ran under a bridge,’ said Naomi. ‘We could see the rockets flying over us in the sky. Every time one was hit by a defensive Iron
Dome missile, the boom was so loud that the ground shook.’
After a few more minutes, Naomi, 32, got back on the bus. They were driving along the highway when the rockets began to rain down on them for a third time.
‘We were like sitting ducks. There was nowhere to go. We lay on the side of the highway under some bushes and I was shaking,’ she said.
‘I video-called my mum because I was absolutely terrified. And I just started praying – saying the Shema [the last thing a Jew is supposed to say before death] and screaming and crying. I was telling her I thought I was going to die. And I just kept saying I am going to die here. I am going to die. I don’t want to die.’
After more than an hour, it stopped. For now.
It is a story that so many Israelis will recognise after Iran lashed out with a huge missile attack yesterday evening.
And like so many with friends and family in Israel, I have spent the past days gripped with fear, worrying that such an attack would take place.
At just after 5.15pm UK time, I received my first text from Israel.
Dozens of WhatsApp groups all with the same frantic questions: ‘Are you in a shelter?’ ‘Are you safe?’ ‘Is everyone ok?’
But this was frighteningly different to the thousands of rocket attacks that Israelis have sadly grown used to these past 12 months.
That is because it was Iran which had decided to launch almost 200 ballistic missiles into Israel, forcing millions of citizens – including scores of my family and friends – into bomb shelters.
This is only the second time Iran has directly targeted Israel with missiles, instead of using one of its proxy groups.
A previous attack in April was mercifully frustrated by Israel’s Iron Dome air-defence system. Just after 5pm local time, gunmen opened fire on innocent civilians in Jerusalem Boulevard in the port city of Jaffa.
Devastating images started to circulate on WhatsApp groups of dead bodies strewn across the pavement.
When the Mail went to press, at least six had been killed and ten wounded. Immediately I texted my family group chat: ‘Checking no one is in Jaffa or Tel Aviv.’ My aunt replied that she was safe at home. ‘Don’t go out!’ my grandma added nervously.
Then my ‘Red Alerts’ app – which warns users about the location of missile attacks in Israel – started to flash.
When I clicked on the app, the entire map of Israel was covered by these red warning signs. Tel Aviv. Jerusalem. Ra’anana: All predicted to be struck by missiles in a matter of minutes.
As I zoomed into the map I could see that many of the areas being indiscriminately targeted by Iran’s terror missiles were filled with my loved ones – waiting expectantly in shelters.
It is hard to articulate the panic of knowing that your family and friends are trapped in a country that is being rained on with deadly fire.
‘It’s horrendous to watch,’ my mum messaged in the chat as her sister (my aunt) hid in a bomb shelter with her husband and three of her children.
These deadly ‘fireworks’ were also filmed soaring over Jerusalem – the holiest place for so many religions.
Meanwhile my cousin, who is studying in a religious college or ‘Yeshiva’ in the north of Israel, started sending shocking videos of rockets flying nearby alongside the caption ‘non stop booms!’
‘Stop filming and get in the shelter!’ my aunt responded in a panic. But the trauma for so many Israelis will last long beyond this night of terror.
‘It’s so sad what happened,’ my 14-year-old cousin messaged me at around 7.45pm, once she was out of the shelter.
I had no real words of reassurance for her.
‘I know, my love. It is.’