


Buildings three blocks away from the site of an overnight Iranian missile impact in Tel Aviv showed signs of damage, including cracked windows, on Monday.
Closer to the impact site, businesses and apartments were largely bombed out. A 15-story high-rise overlooking the impact site over a parking lot was left entirely windowless.
Despite the paucity of safe rooms in the area, only four people were hurt in the attack and treated for light to moderate injuries, Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital said.
Two buildings were completely destroyed by the blast. Emergency services were still working to clear the rubble early Monday afternoon as officers, soldiers and a large group of curious civilians milled about.
Nearby, a mobile municipality command center coordinated the evacuation of affected residents to hotels.
As anguished-looking residents waited on the sidewalk with bags and suitcases, one resident with a large black suitcase asked to retrieve valuables from his apartment within the cordoned-off zone, just across from buildings being razed. A security guard told him it would be impossible until the demolition was over.
“It could take 20 minutes, it could take three hours,” said the guard.
Dorit and Ofer, who live about five buildings down from the fall site, said they heard a huge boom as they sheltered in the packed community safe room during the attack. Their own apartment escaped relatively okay, they said.
“Some windows broke, walls cracked,” said Dorit. “But it’s not like that,” she added, pointing across the street to a newly windowless apartment building.
Business owners in the area swept up glass, taking stock of what remained.
A sex shop, a liquor store and a Russian restaurant were among the businesses that were all but destroyed.
Elsewhere, eight people were killed and dozens were injured overnight as Iranian missiles struck central and northern Israel for a third straight night, with direct hits in Petah Tikva, Bnei Brak, and Haifa, in addition to the significant damage to Tel Aviv’s city center.
The barrage shattered windows, punched holes through apartment buildings, and left streets across the area littered with glass and debris.
In Petah Tikva, four people were killed when a missile slammed into a residential building, collapsing part of the structure and igniting a fire that tore through multiple floors.
“We were in the [protected room] and luckily weren’t physically harmed,” Dor Tzun, who lived with his family in the building, told Ynet. “Suddenly, we heard a huge boom. We knew the building was hit, and I immediately told my mother, ‘There’s been a hit,’ because the house was flying.”
“I had a panic attack for at least half an hour — it took me a while to get my bearings. I was shaking — I’ve never had this happen to me in my life. The living room was destroyed. The bathroom, the entire hallway.”
However, their shelter room was unscathed, he noted. “Nothing happened to it.”
Another man was killed in neighboring Bnei Brak after shrapnel from an intercepted missile struck him near his home.
The same missile struck the ALEH rehabilitative campus in Bnei Brak — Israel’s leading center for children with severe physical and cognitive disabilities. The blast shattered windows, collapsed parts of the structure, and destroyed essential therapy rooms and equipment, leaving the facility inoperable.
The building’s public bomb shelter, intended to protect local residents, was locked at the time of the attack, and dozens were forced to flee elsewhere, narrowly escaping the collapse.
“We were met with destruction in every corner,” said Rabbi Yehuda Marmorstein, founder and CEO of ALEH, which serves 300 children. “Classrooms, mobility equipment, therapy rooms — all gone. But the greatest pain is knowing that these children, who need around-the-clock treatment, are now left without it.”
The overnight attacks brought the total number of people killed in Israel since the Iranian missile campaign began Friday to 24.
Though most incoming projectiles were intercepted, Israel’s multi-layered air defense system was unable to prevent all of the damage. Authorities warned that further attacks may follow, and urged residents to remain near shelters as rescue and recovery efforts continued into the day.
Israel targeted Iranian nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and senior military brass early Friday morning at the start of what it warned would be a prolonged operation to prevent Tehran, which vows to destroy Israel, from attaining nuclear weapons.
In response, Iran has launched massive, deadly barrages totaling hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel.