Israelis lose faith in their safe rooms after Iranian strikes
Standing outside her grandmother's tower block in pyjamas, Nurit implored the local mayor to tell her the truth. While most of the block stood firm, where her grandmother's flat used to be was now a gaping black hole.
'They're not telling me anything. They think she likely didn't survive it, but they won't tell me where she is,' Nurit said. 'She was right there, that's her apartment, all alone. On that floor. I need to know where she is.'
The four people who died when the Iranian missile struck the 20-storey tower block in Petah Tikva, a city east of Tel Aviv, were sheltering in reinforced safe rooms in the lower floors of the block. Nurit's grandmother, who lived on the third floor, remained officially unaccounted for on Monday night, but was assumed by rescue workers to be among the dead.
Safe rooms have been mandatory in new buildings in Israel since the Gulf War more than 30 years ago — the last time Tel Aviv came under intense fire. Made of solid concrete, they are designed to protect inhabitants from bombs and toxic gases.
The missile, fired shortly after 4am on Monday, directly hit the safe rooms, taking with them the hope that they might prove impenetrable to Iranian fire, which is far heavier than the rockets launched by Hamas from Gaza.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the attack caused Israel's defence systems to target each other, allowing Tehran to successfully hit many more targets than on previous nights.
'There were two rooms where the missile hit. The entire apartment imploded, crushed, and one of the walls smashed into the door, so we needed to use tools to remove it,' said Yariv Sandalon, the city official who led the rescue efforts in Petah Tikva.
'They were in their safe rooms and unfortunately, even though the reinforcement is very strong, the missile hit exactly on it.' The missile moved at eight times the speed of sound, he said.
It is the first time that Israeli safe rooms have been tested by the impact of a direct hit from ballistic missiles. Civilians — who use safe rooms, basements, car parks and public shelters — may now have fewer protected places to hide from Iranian attacks.
'If you are on the street and there's a bomb and a siren, what do you do?' Sandalon added. 'You go down under the ground, why? Because it's safer than staying above. You have to assess it like this.'
Safe rooms had already lost some of their credibility in the October 7 attacks, when gunmen from Gaza entered southern Israel and opened the unlocked shelter doors to find their civilian victims inside. Now, Israelis may seek to move underground.
'The door of my shelter blew open from the impact,' said Liat Drori, who lives a few metres away from a second impact site in Tel Aviv, near the Carmel market, which used to be a popular tourist destination. 'We are going to try and make it to the government building nearby next time, if we have enough warning. Hopefully it'll be safer.'
Eleven people were killed and 100 others wounded overnight into Monday in five locations across Israel, including in the port of Haifa, where three people were found dead from smoke inhalation after rescuers failed to extinguish the fire sparked by a missile strike. Their bodies were eventually recovered from a safe room in the structure where they had taken shelter.
The defence minister, Israel Katz, warned that residents in Tehran would 'pay the price and soon' as four days of exchanging fire between the two sides showed no sign of letting up.
Those who survived the attacks but were made homeless were evacuated and taken to hospital or moved to hotels, which were quickly filling up.
'I thought the neighbours were playing football, the bang was so loud. I woke up this morning and thought to go back to Egypt, where I came from,' said Yitzhak Dayan, joking amid residents in Petah Tikva who were standing behind police tape waiting to retrieve their possessions. 'I fled Egypt in 1957, now I'm thinking of fleeing back the other way.'
In the face of Iranian drones and missiles launched under the cover of darkness, hospitals have moved critical patients, including premature babies, to protected facilities underground.
The apartment block in Petah Tikva took a direct hit shortly after 4am on Monday
ABIR SULTANEPA
Sandalon said that safe rooms above ground were fine, but direct impacts were still dangerous.
'When you build a mamad, a fortified room, it's for hits even just five metres to the side of it,' he said. 'If you want to build it specifically against a direct impact, you need to make the walls much thicker, something like a metre and a half thick.' The current regulations state that walls should be about 40cm thick.
'And if it was directly on them, it's really unfortunate, but that's life,' said Sandalon, 60, hardened by years in military service as an infantry soldier and commander in Lebanon and Gaza.
'They are still very safe,' he said. 'Life is not 100 per cent guaranteed. If you walk on the sidewalk, someone could easily lose control of their car.'
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