Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Noa Moshytz’s home in northern Israel doesn’t have a bomb shelter, so as warnings of an unprecedented Iranian attack mounted late on Saturday night, she took her six-month-old daughter Mayan and drove to her mother’s home in Jerusalem.
They got there just after midnight. Barely an hour later they were racing to the safe room, as sirens wailed and arcs of falling debris from intercepted ballistic missiles lit up the night sky over the city.
“It was crazy, but here we are at the market,” she said the next morning, out shopping in central Mahane Yehuda. “In Israel, we come back to normality very fast.”
Saturday had been an ominous day, with the country poised between fear and disbelief after increasingly strong US warnings that Tehran might break with decades of “strategic restraint” by launching its first ever direct strikes on Israel.
Then at 11pm local time a military spokesperson announced that Iran had launched dozens of drones that were just “hours away”.
An intense, terrifying wait began to see if any of Iran’s weapons would hit their targets.
The US had been warning for days that Tehran planned a significant attack in retaliation for a missile strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus on 1 April that killed a top commander and several diplomats.
The only question had been when, and where. Increasingly, it looked like it would be on Saturday night or Sunday morning, with Israeli territory – not its interests abroad – the target.
Joe Biden, the US president, abandoned a beach weekend in Delaware and flew back to the White House. Israel’s foreign minister cancelled a trip to Europe, its defence minister, Yoav Gallant, met the military chief of staff and top generals, and an emergency war cabinet convened.
At about 8.30pm the military announced public gatherings and educational activities were banned for two days. In Jerusalem, bars and restaurants shut down early, and people hurried home to wait and listen to the news.
Then the news broke that the drones were in the air. As fighter jets roared out to meet them, Israel announced its airspace would close to all commercial and private traffic just after midnight, and neighbouring countries followed suit. Airlines that hadn’t already diverted flights from the region rushed to do so.
At about 12.30am the assault began, with a few rockets fired into northern Israel, likely from Syria. Over the night, launches would follow from allies based in Iraq and Yemen, as well as Iran itself.
Tehran’s slow-moving Shahed drones, which have also been used by Russia to hit Ukraine, usually fly at 110mph and are relatively easily intercepted, even by air defence systems less sophisticated than Israel’s.
But launched in large numbers they can tie up air defences, potentially allowing faster-moving cruise and ballistic missiles to reach their targets.
Inside Israel many people waited up, some heading straight to safe rooms, others watching the sky and listening for the wail of air raid sirens, wondering if they would need to take shelter.
Tel Aviv, the country’s commercial heart, slept quietly through the night, but in Jerusalem a massive explosion around 1.30am woke up many who had managed to fall asleep. Alarms followed soon after, sending people racing for cover.
“What was different (from past attacks) was the explosion woke me first, then I heard the alarms,” said 76-year-old pensioner Shoshana Sabag, who has lived through several wars. “I heard the sirens and just went into the stairway to shelter. I am on the third floor and I didn’t want to go downstairs to the safe room.”
The sound was the Arrow air defence system taking out the ballistic missiles that had slipped past the squadrons of fighter jets and batteries of ground air defence systems deployed by Israel and key allies including the US, the UK and France.
For about 15 minutes blazing missile fragments trailed across the sky over the city as parents told frightened children that it was a fireworks display, trying to soothe them back to sleep.
In northern Israel, at around the same time, a volley of Hezbollah rockets flew over the border from Lebanon. Air raid alerts covered much of the north, and south of the country as well as Palestine.
All the cruise missiles and drones were intercepted before they reached Israel’s airspace, an Israeli military spokesperson said the next morning. The Iron Dome system stopped Hezbollah’s rockets and the majority of the estimated 120 ballistic missiles fired by Iran were taken out before they hit.
Several ballistic missiles – single digits according to a military spokesperson – were able to slip through defence systems and hit the Nevatim airbase in the southern Negev desert. They caused only minor damage, however, and the base stayed fully operational.
The only casualty was a young girl from the Bedouin community, who was rushed to intensive care after she was hit by falling shrapnel from an intercepted missile that fell on her village in the Negev desert.
The show of defensive strength by Israel and its allies was celebrated early on Sunday morning by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. “We intercepted. We repelled. Together we will win,” he said in a short post on X, a couple of hours after the sun rose over a quiet Jerusalem.
Much of the city took the attack in its stride. “I didn’t hear the sirens. I heard the news at midnight that 150 drones were coming, which makes you a bit anxious, but I went to sleep,” said 62-year-old Boaz Tzidkiyahu, who has a market stall selling salads, pickles and preserves.
“I got up at 5am, woke up my workers, and came to work. Sundays are usually quiet days, and today doesn’t feel any different from usual.”
Like many in Israel, he hoped the night would mark the end of a dangerous and expensive exchange with Iran. “I really hope everything is behind us,” he said.
It was the first time since 1991 that ballistic missiles had been launched at Israel, and the first time that a direct attack came from Iranian soil. For decades the two countries have played out a shadow war with a ring of Iranian proxies targeting Israel. This direct confrontation raises the risk of escalation to a full-blown conflict.
Israel’s military said on Sunday that it considered Tehran’s use of ballistic missiles an “escalatory factor”, and it had drawn up possible plans for an offensive strike in response. Hours later, Iran warned that any Israeli retaliation for its overnight strikes would draw a stronger response.
And while Israel’s defence was extremely effective, it was also very expensive. Warding off the waves of drones and missiles was likely to have cost around a $1bn, according to the ynet news site.
Sabag also hoped both governments would step back from further conflict. “We have a good air defence system. I’m happy about how it performed,” she said. “I hope now that Israel won’t react, and this whole incident will be finished.”
But many Israeli hardliners, who see an aggressive military posture as the only way to protect the country, argued that the success in blocking 99% of Iran’s drones and missiles should pave the way for a new onslaught on Iran and its regional allies.
“If our response resonates throughout the Middle East for generations to come, we will win. If we hesitate, God forbid, we will put ourselves and our children in immediate existential danger,” said far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich in a post on X.
“This is the time for leadership that is able to restore deterrence … Not in slogans, in deeds.”
