The IDF’s Home Front Command launched an investigation into the impact of an Iranian ballistic missile on a residential building in Petach Tikva early Monday morning, in which four people were killed, including two who were inside their reinforced room (“mamad”) at the time of the strike.
Initial findings revealed that the missile hit directly the wall between two reinforced rooms, and the wall was unable to withstand such a direct hit from a missile with a particularly heavy warhead of hundreds of kilos of explosives, Army Radio reported on Monday morning.
Two of the people killed were inside one of the reinforced rooms that sustained a direct hit. Two others at the site were killed while outside protected spaces—one of them on the floor above and the second in a neighboring building—as a result of the shockwave.
The Home Front Command emphasized that safe rooms are designed to protect against shrapnel and blast waves—which are common scenarios—and not against a direct hit, which is rare. However, even in this severe case, residents who were in nearby safe rooms, in the same building, on floors above and below the impact area, were unharmed.
The municipality stated that hundreds of residents of the neighborhood were evacuated from their homes.
Petach Tikvah Mayor Rami Greenberg said following the incident, “First of all, we share in the sorrow of the families who lost their loved ones and wish a speedy recovery to the injured. We are here, we were here at four in the morning. This building that took the direct hit contains dozens of residents; next to it are four identical buildings. In fact, we evacuated hundreds of residents from four buildings in the neighborhood. We evacuated them here to a nearby municipal absorption center, and we are currently working to find them a place to stay longer, into the night and in general, and to restore the situation to its former state as quickly as possible.”
“Unfortunately, we see that even a direct hit on a protected space resulted in fatalities. Since these are relatively new buildings, they were not significantly damaged. Where the missile hit directly, there is great destruction and, unfortunately, also fatalities, but all the other buildings that are very close and also this building itself, where there was no direct hit, are still strong and standing.”
“It must be understood that if it had hit older buildings, for example, it could have been a completely different event, even a collapse of the structure. It could have been a greater disaster. And yet, even though there was a direct hit on a safe room, the rest of the people who were inside safe rooms were saved. Therefore, it is important to follow the instructions to be in safe rooms as needed. It saves lives.”
(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)
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One Response
Why build high rise residential buildings. Israel has vast empty land where they can build one and two family homes with underground shelters which are more secure. You can spread out millions of Jews in judea and Samaria. These money grabbing builders trying to sell apartments in high rise buildings to us American Jews is the problem. You endanger more people with large buildings only to cash in.