It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a big piece of an Iranian ballistic missile.
Every war comes with some new challenges. In the last round between Israel and Iran, there were several spectacular missile hits in Israel. The Weizmann Institute of Science—possibly the premier academic institution in the country—suffered billions of shekels of damage from a direct hit. Soroka Hospital in Beer Sheva also had a direct hit on a building that had been emptied of patients the day prior. Impacts of one-ton exploding warheads led to the destruction of thousands of apartments, many of which are still being rebuilt as a new round of fighting continues.
And while this time around there have been several large explosions due to Iranian (and Hezbollah) projectiles, possibly the biggest threat to Israeli citizens is the shrapnel from the intercepted and interceptor rockets. Pieces of Iranian rockets have been found throughout the country, including on the Temple Mount. One of our boys just showed me a small piece of a missile that landed in front of a neighbor's house. Most Israelis take seriously Bibi Netanyahu’s recent coffee advice that Israelis can go out a bit but always keep close to a reinforced room. While one can say that statistically, the likelihood of being harmed is very low, people realize that getting hit by shrapnel is a potentially catastrophic event. We are grateful to wake up in the morning without having had to run to the bomb shelter in the middle of the night. After an hour out shopping recently, I said my thanks to the Boss that I did not have to find a place to hide near the stores I visited.
Iran, like the one-hit wonders of the past, saw that its missiles caused a lot of damage and 28 deaths last summer and assumed that its program would work again. The percentage of interceptions appears higher and the number of projectiles sent is down over 90 percent from the start of the war. Whether they send 20 missiles or one, the procedures are the same. The Home Front is trying to improve its warning accuracy and after the general phone warning, it works to activate the air raid sirens only where there is a risk of impact or debris. Of the three phone warnings on Monday, twice we raced to the parking structure, with the third warning having no follow-up sirens. Those two visits included small children, so immediately after the phone noise, coats were put on, strollers were arranged and ready to move on a moment’s notice. After the last explosions in the skies are heard, one waits some number of minutes for any potentially falling shrapnel, as it seems to be the most pressing threat to someone exposed to the outside. Welcome to Israel, 2026.
People are still working to both arrive and leave the country. Over 100,000 Israelis have returned since the start of the war. The airline El Al has promised five daily flights to New York to help get Americans home. The US Embassy and its staff have been working overtime to get Americans out either through special flights out of Ben Gurion Airport or via land borders with Jordan and Egypt. Airport authorities are most concerned with people on a plane when a missile alert arrives and how to get them back into the terminal building.
With Iran firing missiles and drones at everybody in the region, one realizes that it would not be like traditional nuclear powers if they had the bomb. From the US to Pakistan, holders of the bomb use their nuclear weapons as an insurance policy and as an implicit threat against any potential enemies. The Iranians are lunatics and never stop praising “martyrdom” and how wonderful it is to die for the cause. It’s hard to believe that they would have waited 20 minutes to fire a nuclear-tipped missile at Israel, with additional projectiles planned for Europe and Iran’s Gulf neighbors. The latter have been attacked again and again, and unlike with Israel, drones work extremely effectively when sent short distances. Instead of getting the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia to pressure Washington to end the war, Iran’s bombing has steeled their determination that their big neighbor must be completely defanged for their own self-preservation.
The reality of the Iranian missile attacks in Israel is complicated. There are many people who cannot get to a protected space. I have a friend whose older parents are not able to manage the six flights down from their place to reach the nearest reinforced room. On Tuesday night, an Iranian missile attack killed a couple in their 70s in a stairwell. A fellow argued recently in court that he drove 157 km/hr in a 90 zone due to air raid sirens. The judge wasn’t buying it, though he reduced his license suspension from 30 to 20 days “in light of the circumstances”.
On that Tuesday night attack, I had just fallen asleep when the phone went bonkers. Like zombies, we got ourselves dressed, put the key on the outside of the door for a fast exit and then waited. If there is no siren, then there is no need or purpose in going over to the parking garage. But this time, there were sirens everywhere, so we made our way over to our home away from home. We saw interceptors streak into the sky and heard the massive “booms” overhead. Around 15 minutes after leaving home, we were back. Before we could do anything, two boys said that another salvo was on its way. Five minutes later, the sirens and then the dash across the street. We saw the multiple submunitions of an Iranian cluster missile. They apparently were involved in the death and significant damage in the Tel Aviv area. Israel kills terrorists and their commanders; Iranians kill pensioners who can’t get to a safe room in time.
The UN should be howling about the illegal cluster munitions, but everything related to Israel is always one-way. If Israel accidentally hits a school, then committees meet and the fat fool at the head of the international body drops his sandwich and grabs the nearest microphone to condemn the Jewish state. If the bad guys kill Jews intentionally, it’s just one big yawn. Watching the Democrats and Europeans either cheer the Iranians or sit on the sidelines tells us how far Western anti-religious society has fallen. Everyone condemned Iran as the fountainhead of terror, but when Donald Trump and his posse actually got up and did something about it, they couldn’t support the effort. The European states are lost; we are witnessing in real time the same processes that ended Egypt, Lebanon and dozens of other countries as Christian or otherwise non-Muslim countries. The Europeans cannot stop the process of Islamic growth in their countries because they have nothing meaningful to offer in its place. They hate their supposedly evil colonial history (look at how backwards countries are that never had Europeans around), their religion and their people. I saw a video of six British police officers waiting for a fellow to get off a plane so as to arrest him for some “offensive” internet comment. Europe is lost and thus cannot act. Israel and the Gulf states will be far better friends of the United States, as they understand the reality of Islamic terror and the need to fight it. It’s almost a joke that the Muslim Brotherhood is banned in the UAE but not in the UK. The Europeans can't even be bothered to protect the flow of oil to their own countries.
As I was going over this piece, the phone alert appeared at 7:56 A.M on Wednesday. We got into position, but there were no follow-on sirens. Thank God.