Sunday, June 15, 2025

I just wanted to update everyone that we're OK, very tired, but doing OK.

Friday evening until Saturday morning we had barrage after barrage of ballistic missiles to our area, constant air raid sirens. The missiles from Iran have been targeting civilian areas, towns and cities, crowded residential areas.

Thankfully most missiles were intercepted but a few still got through that there were casualties including fatalities and extensive damage in the crowded cities of central Israel. Our immediate area was safe but we heard the interceptions and impacts loudly.

At one point the whole building shook and the heavy reenforced steel blast door of our shelter shook. I was the only with a direct view, and the way the door vibrated I almost wondered if it was going to implode. It was just a second or two, a brief, massive boom when everything shook, but it seemed to stretch out so long. We found out later that one of the missiles had scored a direct hit on a town about 15 miles from us decimating a residential street and killing two people, wounding others. What we felt was the edge of the shockwave from that blast all this distance away.

Our shelter is small, windowless and underground, very hot and stuffy, but we are very grateful to have it. It's like human tetris trying to get everyone in at night when people just want to sleep but there isn't room for the whole family to lie down at the same time.

We tried to make things a bit more light hearted for the kids, joked about having a "picnic dinner" in the shelter, joked that it was really silly we made soup because nope, no way we were eating hot soup in a crowded little shelter. And we sang together, and we read Psalms together and prayed too.

We've been through a lot of rocket and missile attacks but this is the most intense I can remember. The missiles from Iran are much bigger, more lethal and pack a far larger warhead than those fired at us by Hamas, Hizballah and the Houthis. The damage one of these things can do, just one, is far greater, and we had plenty of damage from the smaller rockets. It's always terrifying to know that someone is shooting projectiles at you, whether they are smaller or bigger, they are all designed to kill, but this time is definitely more terrifying still. We've had hundreds of these huge Iranian missiles fired at us, even if only a very few get through the air defences, that's a lot of damage.

I'm awake at 0230 because we just had another alert to get to shelter because of expected incoming missiles in our area. Again. All night there have been air raid sirens in the north and far south, I think attack drones from Yemen and ballistic missiles from Iran. Now the densely populated central Israeli cities are being targeted again.

We can hear explosions in the distance, getting closer. Sirens going again now for us. Lots of booms and thuds. We're following local civil defense instructions, staying in our shelter, listening to the alerts, hoping and praying for the best.

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