Usually considered the safest place from missiles, Jerusalem is increasingly under fire

JERUSALEM — As sirens blared warning of incoming missiles, John and his family — kids ages 10, 5 and 3 — were sheltering inside their Old City home when they heard a crash on their roof.

“We went outside and looked — there was a piece of shrapnel, like this big,” he said, holding out his fingers about two inches apart.

They were all safe, but shaken.

“Now the kids understand why it's not safe to go outside when there’s a siren,” he told ALL ISRAEL NEWS, using an alias.

An Iranian missile was intercepted over Jerusalem on Monday afternoon, raining shrapnel across all four quarters of the Old City. Parts landed on homes, a parking lot, a convent, the Dome of the Rock complex and even the Holy Sepulchre — the ancient church believed to be the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. 

In this war, Jerusalem is seemingly more in the line of fire than it has been in recent conflicts. Shrapnel landed in the city a few times in the past 17 days, including on Saturday, when a missile fragment damaged an apartment building (that houses an American embassy worker). 

But to many, the Old City was still considered "off limits," with its glut of holy sites in the geographically compact area.

Whether random shrapnel from interceptions or deliberate targeting — nobody knows — Jerusalem is more active and residents more jittery than in prior wars. Like most families in the Old City, John’s family does not have a shelter in their home, and there are no public shelters in the Christian, Armenian and Muslim Quarters.

The primary concern is the children, said one Christian resident of the Old City, who asked not to be named.

“The worst part is the nights,” he told ALL ISRAEL NEWS. “I wake up 10 times a night to check my phone to see if there are any pre-alerts before the siren. I don’t want my kids to wake up to a siren.”

For their family, the closest shelter is an eight-minute walk from their home, so they don’t go.

“Today, after what happened in the Quarter, it’s not a game. Not that it was a game or treated lightly, and what happened here today is really nothing,” he said. “Everybody’s afraid, and God knows how much patience we all have for this.”

In a statement, Israeli police said they've handled “multiple impact sites caused by intercepted missile fragments in the Old City and at holy sites.”

“During the recent missile salvo fired from Iran toward Jerusalem, several intercepts occurred over the city. Following these interceptions, police and Border Police forces located fragments of missiles and interceptor debris, some of significant size, at multiple sites in the Old City, including the Temple Mount complex, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre complex and the Jewish Quarter,” according to the statement.

Unlike the younger generations, Harout Sandrouni has lived through so many wars in Jerusalem that he doesn’t consider this one among the most dangerous. In 1967, his family lived across from the David Citadel — more or less the frontlines of that war. He and his siblings spent hours under their beds when constant machine gun fire punctured the air. 

“I remember leaving the house with my mother to go buy bread and as soon as we opened the door, the gunshots started again. We rushed back in,” he told ALL ISRAEL NEWS. “We spent a lot of time inside during that war. That was probably one of the worst.”

Sandrouni missed the 1973 Yom Kippur War in Jerusalem because he was studying engineering at a university in Beirut. Instead, he experienced the Lebanon civil war — an equally harrowing experience, he recalled. 

Back in Jerusalem, more conflicts unfolded.  

“With the Saddam (Hussein) war, we were more on guard because of the threat of chemical warfare,” he said.

This time, he feels protected. 

“I have to give credit to this government — they are very well prepared,” he said. 

Caroline, who lives on the border between the Armenian and Jewish Quarter, was not home when a missile fragment landed in the parking lot across from her apartment.

“What happened today — it's the first time it came this near to my house,” she said. “If I was in the house and this is what happened today, I don’t know what would have happened with me.”

This proximity is new — and concerning.

“After what happened today, I am not going to sleep with pajamas. I need to be ready to run,” she said. 

Caroline doesn’t have a shelter at home either, but being inside an unprotected building frightens her even more.

“I personally prefer to be outside the house because I can see which way it is going and if I have a chance to run far,” she said. “But when you are inside the house, you panic because you don’t know which way it is going.”

This article was originally published by All Israel News.