Unable to fall asleep, Oun Alka’abneh was scrolling on his phone late on Saturday when he heard loud bangs, then a piercing explosion – all of which jolted him upright.
He rushed to peer out the window in Amman, the capital of Jordan, worried that someone had been hit on the street by a car.
What he saw came as a shock. A giant chunk from an Iranian projectile – shot out of the skies by the Jordanian military – had crashed right outside his house. Shrapnel scattered up and down the block.
Iran was launching more than 300 drones and missiles in the direction of Israel that night in an unprecedented, retaliatory attack. Many of those projectiles were soaring right over Jordan, which shares the world’s longest border with Israel and the West Bank, a Palestinian territory.
“I thought a lot of things that night,” said Mr Alka’abneh. “But I just never imagined that a rocket would land in my neighbourhood.”