Israel and Iran at war: 'The missile hit and we waited to die'

In a special podcast on the new and devastating conflict between Israel and Iran, host Allison Kaplan Sommer talks to Haaretz senior security analyst Amos Harel, who assesses the initial military achievements, the high price of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to launch a preemptive strike on the Islamic Republic and the likelihood of the United States being pulled into the war. 

Harel believes that while, as always, there were political and personal interests behind the premier’s timing of the attack, Israel’s top security chiefs widely viewed it as necessary.

“Not only was Iran on its way to becoming a nuclear power, but there were other parts of its plans in which they were making impressive progress in recent weeks. Their rate of production of ballistic missiles meant that within a few years, the Iranian arsenal that could hit Israel would probably rise to up to 8,000 missiles. The current assessment is around 2,500 missiles. That is quite a difference, and there was a narrow window of opportunity in which Israel had to act.”

Harel was skeptical that a cease-fire was possible any time soon since “not enough blood has been spilled.” He was also doubtful that Israel’s display of force and destruction could push the ideologically driven ayatollahs to the negotiating table to make compromises on nuclear enrichment. 

If the conflict drags on and “becomes a war of attrition that leads nowhere, then Netanyahu will be in deep trouble,” he predicted.

Judy Rowland, a former New Yorker also joined the podcast to share her harrowing experience when an Iranian ballistic missile hit her Tel Aviv apartment building. She lived on the 29th floor on Friday night, which she said, felt reminiscent of the 9/11 attack. 

When the missile struck, she and her family were huddled in their apartment’s safe room. “We thought about the people who were stuck on the higher floors” in the New York towers. 

“When we smelled smoke, I started thinking ‘Will we burn to death? Or will we jump out of the windows?’” 

The parallel arose again as the Rowlands and their neighbors were making their way down the tens of flights of stairs amid the debris seeking safety. “I couldn’t help thinking about all those people in the buildings walking down the stairs. All of us felt it and were saying the same thing. It was a total 9/11 moment. This was our 9/11.”

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