From prayer to cheers, Iranian missiles spark mixed reactions in Jerusalem

Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg Associated Press Civilians take cover on the side of a road as a siren sounds to warn of incoming missiles fired from Iran on a highway in Shoresh, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024.

Agence France-Presse in Jerusalem

Published yesterday at 14:46 Updated yesterday at 16:25

• Middle East

Jewish prayer in an underground parking lot, candy distribution in a shelter, or shouts of joy in a Palestinian neighborhood: in Jerusalem, the Iranian missile attack on Israel Tuesday night is experienced very differently depending on where you are.

When the sirens sound, around 7:30 p.m. (12:30 p.m. in Quebec), hundreds of people at the central bus station in the western part of the city take shelter in the underground parking lot, obeying army instructions.

Some begin reading psalms. Others check their phones in a calm only disturbed by the detonations of explosions that resound outside: interceptions of projectiles by missiles from the Israeli anti-aircraft defense.

On the surface, the black sky lights up with white-orange streaks progressing from east to west and punctuated by explosions that resonate throughout the Holy City.

In a shelter in Musrara, a neighborhood in the west of the city, residents call friends and relatives in Israel to check on them or give their news.

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A man who prefers not to give his name tells an AFP journalist: “We can put things into perspective, but the children don't understand.” He hands them candy, “so they don't have bad memories.”

Children cry. Families continue to arrive as the various waves of alerts come out, some apparently surprised: they had not heard of the threat despite repeated messages from the authorities relayed by the media for over an hour.

Change of scenery and reaction in Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, an area occupied and annexed by Israel since 1967.

Applause and horns

“As soon as the Palestinians [in the neighborhood] heard the first sirens, they started whistling, then clapping and shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’” (“God is the greatest”) as the missiles’ luminous trails lit up the black sky, a local resident recounts. Here, people are not in shelters they don’t have, but in the streets or on rooftops, watching the spectacle, she adds.

To the west, as soon as the alert had passed, Alon, 17, returned to his small camping supply shop in the bus station. “It’s been six months since I heard an alert in Jerusalem,” he says simply, referring to the first direct Iranian missile attack on Israeli territory on the night of April 13-14. “I wasn't afraid,” he assures.

In Ramallah, in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, the passage of the missiles in the sky, just ten kilometers north of Jerusalem, was greeted by songs of joy, whistles and a concert of horns, according to an AFP journalist in this city which is home to the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority.

A video apparently shot not far from there, near the Israeli settlement of Beit El, is circulating on social networks, and AFP was not immediately able to authenticate it, showing a group of ten young Palestinians shouting their excitement as they straighten a missile tail that must have measured more than four meters to make it stand upright on its four fins.

According to the Israeli army, Iran fired “about 180 missiles” toward Israel. The attack killed one person in Jericho, a Palestinian from Gaza who had been stuck there since the start of the war triggered by the bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel on October 7, according to Hossein Hanayel, governor of this West Bank city.

In Israel, two people were lightly injured by shrapnel in Tel Aviv, according to Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross.