Everyone’s telephone buzzed directly with an alert at round 19:30 native time.
It learn: “You need to enter a protected space instantly and stay there till additional discover.”
The message was despatched by the Israel Protection Forces’s Residence Entrance Command and ended with the phrase “life-saving directions”.
Individuals started to move for shelter in secure rooms as missiles had been launched in the direction of Israel from Iran.
The sirens sounding throughout the nation had been heard by thousands and thousands.
Because the wail of the alarm rang outdoors, we moved to the shelter within the BBC’s Jerusalem Bureau – a safe a part of the constructing with no home windows.
We might hear frequent booms as missiles flew overhead and had been intercepted by Israel’s defence system.
Movies captured right here and elsewhere shared on social media confirmed streams of sunshine because the missiles flew over Israel – and clouds of smoke as they had been intercepted or detonated on influence.
“There’s a great deal of them,” a contact exclaimed in a video filmed in southern Israel that exhibits circles of sunshine within the evening sky.
At about 20:00, the IDF mentioned its aerial defence array was figuring out and intercepting the launches, and referred to as on individuals to “stay in a protected house till additional discover”.
It continued: “The explosions you’re listening to are from interceptions and fallen projectiles.”
Concern had been mounting throughout Israel as experiences emerged early within the night that Iran was getting ready a strike.
It got here hours after Israeli troops invaded Lebanon, in what its army calls a “restricted, localised and focused” floor operation in opposition to Hezbollah.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards mentioned it launched the missiles in retaliation for latest assaults that killed the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas, in addition to a senior Iranian commander.
As missiles flew overhead, messages streamed in from individuals in several components of the nation, ready of their secure rooms.
“There’s quite a lot of alarms on a regular basis so we’re within the secure room… However we’re OK for now,” a mom of two within the south of Israel informed me by voice notice.
“Very, very scary. I nonetheless can not imagine that is our life… it was VERY shut,” a message from a journalist in Tel Aviv mentioned.
“Normally we keep on our ground and don’t go right down to the shelter however this time…we realised we needed to go down.”
“It was very loud,” lawyer Efrat Eldan Schechter says by WhatsApp message from Ra’anana in central Israel, including that she believes “it isn’t the tip for tonight”.
“We have to see the way it will evolve. It is rather scary certainly… however we’re sturdy and assured that our IDF will shield us. Iran simply made an enormous mistake.”
About an hour after the primary message, telephones once more vibrated with a brand new alert from the Residence Entrance Command, telling individuals they may depart shelters and guarded areas.
Following the strikes, the IDF spokesperson mentioned there have been some hits in central and southern Israel.
Movies later shared on social media confirmed harm from the missiles in a number of places, together with a big crater within the floor close to Tel Aviv.
The Palestinian civil defence authority within the occupied West Financial institution metropolis of Jericho mentioned a person there died throughout the Iranian missile barrage.
In keeping with the AFP information company, which spoke to metropolis governor Hussein Hamayel, the sufferer was killed by falling rocket particles.
Israeli officers haven’t reported any critical accidents because of Tuesday’s air assaults.
“At this stage we don’t establish extra launches from Iran. Keep accountable and take heed to directions,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari mentioned in a televised deal with.
Israel says at the very least 180 missiles had been fired, most of them intercepted. It has mentioned there will probably be “penalties”.
