Bat Yam, Israel — A shocked Julia Zilbergoltz said she had never experienced anything like the Iranian missile strike that hit her home in central Israel early Sunday.
“I’m stressed and in shock. I’ve been through hard times in my life, but I’ve never been in a situation like this,” Zilbergoltz told AFP, as she gathered her belongings and left her apartment building in Bat Yam, near the coastal city of Tel Aviv.
“I was at home, I was sleeping and I didn’t hear the siren” warning of an incoming missile attack, she said.
She was awoken instead by the loud booms that followed.
According to Israeli officials, six people including two children were killed in the strike that destroyed Zilbergoltz’s home.
Yivgenya Dudka, whose home was also hit by the missile on the city of Bat Yam, said: “Everything was destroyed. There’s nothing left. No house. That’s it.”
In Israel’s north, four people were killed earlier when a strike hit the town of Tamra, taking to 13 the death toll in the country since the start of the attacks began on Friday.
Israeli television channels broadcast footage of devastation from four sites where missiles struck in the early hours of Sunday.
Tel Aviv and the nearby city of Rishon Lezion were also hit by missiles from Iran, after Israeli fighter jets carried out strikes that hit military and nuclear sites as well as residential areas in the Islamic republic.
‘Miracle we survived’ –
According to data shared by the prime minister’s office, missiles hit some 22 locations across Israel.
“I feel very bad. I’m very worried and stressed. I’m in agony for all the dead we have and all the injured people,” said Riky Cohen, a writer from Tel Aviv.
“I’m aware that Iran is very dangerous to Israel and the government wishes to destroy Israel,” she told AFP, saying she supported Israel’s military actions.
But Cohen said she was also “very worried” that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government might “continue the war even though it’s not necessary”.
In Bat Yam, Mayor Tzvika Brot said in a Facebook post that the missile had caused “great destruction and damage to dozens of buildings”.
In addition to the deaths, Brot said that more than 100 people were injured and others remained trapped under the rubble.
“Teams from the Home Front Command have been working here for several hours now, and will remain here until they find them,” he said.
Shahar Ben Zion, who was trying to clean up the damage to his home in Bat Yam, said it was “a miracle we survived”.
“I didn’t want to go down (to the shelter). My mother convinced me… there was an explosion and I thought the whole house had collapsed,” he said.
“Thank God, it was a miracle we survived.”
