&w=3840&q=100)
Iran launches more than 40 missiles toward Israel, 23 people injured
Hours after the US struck three Iranian nuclear sites, Iran launched more than 40 missiles toward Israel on Sunday, wounding 23 people and destroying apartment buildings and homes in three cities.
At an impact site in Tel Aviv, the blast had sheared off the face of a multistory residential building and damaged several others including a nursing home in a radius of hundreds of metres. But few people were wounded, as many residents had been evacuated and others made it to bomb shelters.
Deputy Mayor Haim Goren, who assisted at the scene, said it was nevertheless "miraculous" that more people were not hurt. Relatives and health aides helped residents many with wheelchairs or walkers to leave the nursing home, where windows were blown out up to the top on the 11th floor.
It's like a typhoon came through my apartment, said Ofer Berger, who lives near the impact site on the seventh floor of a high-rise. All of the apartments in this area are destroyed, he said.
Emergency services said one person was moderately wounded by shrapnel in Sunday's missile barrage while dozens of others were lightly injured.
Berger said he hoped the war with Iran would end soon. Most of the tit-for-tat strikes like this end with a lot of tears, he said.
Residents sat with their pets and suitcases outside the damaged buildings. One person sat next to a shopping cart filled with Buddha statues and a child's bicycle.
Families gathered what they could and stepped gingerly around piles of glass and twisted metal. Dozens of volunteers from an organisation called One Heart showed up to help residents salvage their belongings.
Strikes have displaced more than 9,000 people from their homes since the start of the war, according to the Israeli military. Missiles have damaged 240 residential buildings, including more than 2,000 individual apartments.
Mira Goshen, 79, said her entire apartment was destroyed.
My mamad was shaking like a leaf, and I thought it was the end of the world, Goshen said, referring to the reinforced safe rooms that are required in all new construction. She said the shelter had saved her life. In some areas where entire homes were flattened, the reinforced rooms stood intact.
Goshen's pet bird, Chica, survived an 11-story drop when her cage was knocked off the balcony by the explosion. A rescuer retrieved her, and she was trembling and burrowing into Goshen's neck hours later as Goshen spoke with neighbours and authorities outside her building.
Hours later, municipality workers worked to sweep up the the shattered glass and remove debris, while others handed out sandwiches and water at an aid station.
Several businesses on a nearby street had their windows blown out, and the stores were littered with broken glass amid baked goods, children's clothes and books. Workers at a supermarket stacked crates of fruit in front of a shattered front window and opened for shoppers, who packed the aisles.
Residents appeared calm in the aftermath of Sunday's strike, but Goren said the nightly barrages, the frantic running to shelters and the close confines inside them are taking a toll.
There's a lot of stress and pressure building, lots of nerves, the deputy mayor said. Mutual aid groups are working around the clock to match families in need with shelters and support, and the municipality is working to convert parking garages, bus stations and train stations to temporary shelters.
Goshen said she was more focused on where she would go next than on the US strikes on Iran and their aftermath.
I'm far away from politics, and what I think, it doesn't matter actually, because they don't listen to ordinary people, she said.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New Indian Express
2 days ago
- New Indian Express
Five years on, Tiruchy museum renovation still in limbo
TIRUCHY: The State Archaeology Department started renovation of Rani Mangammal's Darbar Hall, which acts as the government museum, started five years ago, but very little progress has been made so far. The museum was relocated from Cantonment to the Darbar Hall in 1998. Historians expressed concerns that hundreds of invaluable artefacts – ranging from stone sculptures and coins to palm-leaf manuscripts – that are cramped up in a single room to facilitate the renovation work could get irrevocably damaged without adequate protective measures. The State Archaeology Department approached the Union government with a proposal to restore the building, built in the 16th century by King Chokkanatha Nayak, after frescoes and decorative elements began to fade and in some places disappeared entirely. In response, the union government sanctioned Rs 3.75 crore under the Museum Grants Scheme in 2019 to renovate the hall. The first phase included cementing and interior painting, which were completed. However, due to the COVID-19 lock downs, the work came to a halt, and has not resumed. Open-air exhibits are particularly at risk. Several rare sculptures and historical objects, including a four-foot-tall Buddha statue, a 10th-century Mahaveer sculpture, 14th-century Pallava artefacts, an East India Company cannon, and idols of Hindu gods and goddesses, are exposed to the elements. Dr R Kalaikovan, director of the Dr Rajamanickanar Historical Research Centre, said his team had handed over 16 granite sculptures, including those of Buddha, Mahaveer, and Chola-period artefacts, to the museum. 'All the sculptures and artefacts must be preserved properly so this historical legacy can be passed on to future generations. If timely action is not taken, we risk losing our history,' he warned. Kalaikovan stressed that there is ample space around the hall for expansion and urged the district administration to allocate land within the premises for protective storage and display. He also opposed the proposal to shift the museum to Panjapur. 'The current location is ideal, surrounded by schools and colleges. Since the land is already government-owned, there's no need to relocate. Even the Madras Museum was expanded at its original site,' he added. Speaking to P Manimuthu, Curator of the Government Museum, told TNIE, 'We are waiting for funds to be released by the government. Once the funds are sanctioned, the work will be completed. We have already submitted the request.'
Indian Express
4 days ago
- Indian Express
Indian workers in Israel pick daily drill of sirens, shelters over evacuation
Having arrived in Israel to fill the construction industry void left by the Palestinian workforce after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, thousands of Indian workers have been getting accustomed to a harsh new reality: the conflict with Iran. Their daily life — working as masons, iron benders, carpenters, ceramic tilers, bakers and so on — is punctuated by frequent missile alerts on their phones and several dashes to the nearest bomb shelter, or 'miklat' as these reinforced spaces are called in Hebrew. The Indian workers appear largely undeterred by the waves of missile strikes and interceptions. Mohan Lal, who belongs to Himachal Pradesh's Mandi district and is a foreman at a workshop in Palmachim, 28 km from Tel Aviv, says there is no mad scramble to return to India through the government's evacuation plan announced on June 19. He is among an estimated 15,000 Indian workers who arrived in Israel through government and private routes following a 2023 bilateral framework agreement. 'About 350 Indian workers have left and maybe 600 more have enrolled to go back to India. Thousands others are feeling quite safe mainly due to the system of phone alerts and sirens being deployed in Israel,' says Mohan Lal, 33. He described how, in the days following the June 13 attacks by Iran, they would have to rush several times in the day and night to the shelters, but now that was needed only once or twice a day. The 'miklat' he usually uses is one of the small concrete containers built near their workshop, which can accommodate up to a dozen people. He says that he recently visited the Ramat Gan area of Tel Aviv to see the damage caused to buildings by Iranian missile strikes, but added that there were no visible signs of damage in Palmachim where he worked. In contrast to these single-room shelters, other Indian workers describe gigantic fortified public shelters which can accommodate up to 1,500 people and are located at every 500 feet in Tel Aviv. Dharamvir Singh, 43, who belongs to Jind in Haryana, has been working as a ceramic tiler in Israel since a year. He has been using one equipped with air conditioners, lounge chairs, toilets and so on. He is working on the tiling of a 27-storey building in Tel Aviv — six of its storeys are designed to serve as underground bunkers. 'More and more, bigger and bigger bomb shelters are being built everywhere in Israel,' he says. 'The difference I find from the earlier phase of attacks by Hamas and the current shower of ballistic missile attacks from Iran is that the alerts give us 20-25 minutes to reach the shelters instead of the earlier 10-15 minutes. We are getting more time to rush to safety.' Gurdeep Chouhan, also from Jind, describes a similar experience of the need for rushing to shelters coming down after a peak two weeks ago. He is working in a well-known bakery, Angel's, along with a large group of Indians in a place called Lod, 15 km from Tel Aviv. He says: 'There is less danger in small places like where we are, which are on the outskirts of the large cities like Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. It is in the big cities that the military establishments, refineries and multi-national companies are located and they could be the target of future attacks.' Subhash Chand, a 33-year old carpenter from Punjab's Hoshiyarpur, says the threat is not from precision bombing but debris from missiles intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome. He says there was panic among their families back home in Punjab because of old videos showing extensive damage to Tel Aviv. 'I have been in Israel for over a year and we are all liking it here. There are no jobs in India. If we take up the offer of the Indian government and return home we will surely regret it,' says Subhash Chand. 'Israeli companies and supervisors respect Indian workers. We feel safe because of the system of alerts and sirens. The phone alerts tell us when to go inside a shelter and let us know when it is safe to come out and go back to our shift duty.' Most of the Indian construction workers The Indian Express spoke to reveal they were earning between `1.5 lakh-`2.5 lakh every month in Israel. 'Even a collector does not earn so much in India. We are not planning to return now and will go on leave only for Diwali as decided earlier,' says Surendra Singh Saini, a driller who arrived in Israel from Jhunjunu, Rajasthan. He says they had got used to a daily drill of missile attacks and shrieking sirens as well as the 'timeout' spent in protected spaces. 'When the missiles are intercepted, we look to the skies and hear the sounds of patakaas (fire crackers) going off. That's all,' he says. There are several Indian supervisors and managers working on large construction sites where hundreds of Indians are employed. They have taken it upon themselves to mentor and guide the workers through this dangerous phase. Dharma Kachawa from Pushkar, Rajasthan arrived in Israel seven years ago is among the Indian supervisors. He says he has a WhatsApp group of 400 Indian workers, employed with the Israeli construction giant Solel Boneh and currently working in a town called Tzur-Yigal. Kachawa, 35, says he does his best to keep Indian workers informed of any potential danger, in case they are unaware of missile attacks. 'The fact is that some ballistic missiles are going through and they do cause damage. So I keep asking each and every Indian worker about his well being. I ask them not to wait for the sirens and move towards safe shelters once the phone alerts come.' Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India's most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ's Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
5 days ago
- First Post
Catnaps, a chemical toilet and more: Inside America's 37-hour B-2 bomber mission into Iran and back
Flying a 37-hour bombing mission to Iran, B-2 pilots faced extreme physical and mental stress. They prepared with sleep simulations, strict nutritional plans and chemical assistance — using sleeping pills pre-mission and amphetamines during flight. Inside a cramped cockpit, rest came in shifts, with only cots, 'piddle packs' and personal grit for support read more Seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers from the United States Air Force embarked on a 37-hour round-trip journey from Missouri's Whiteman Air Force Base to Iranian territory and back. The mission, targeting three fortified nuclear-related facilities in Iran, marked not just a display of military precision but also of extreme endurance. The mission's scale was enormous. Over 125 aircraft were mobilised, including multiple bombers, surveillance platforms, fighter escorts and aerial refuelling tankers. Of the seven B-2s involved in the strike, each aircraft carried two crew members, executing coordinated bomb runs within a tight 30-minute window over their targets. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Although officials have not publicly confirmed specific mission details, parallels can be drawn with earlier long-range bomber operations such as the 44-hour sortie flown by now-retired US Colonel Melvin G Deaile in 2001 during the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom. Describing the Iran raid as 'an incredible feat,' CNN quoted Deaile who highlighted the uniqueness of seven B-2s operating over target areas simultaneously and executing independent bombing trajectories. What goes into a 37-hour B-2 mission Operating a B-2 Spirit over such long distances involves meticulous pre-flight conditioning for pilots. Crews assigned to missions of this length typically undergo days, sometimes weeks, of physical and mental preparation. These include regulated sleep cycles, nutritional planning, and simulator training. Pilots are also trained to manage digestion and hydration — factors that directly affect alertness and comfort in a cockpit with minimal amenities. 'The flight doc did have what we call 'go pills' authorised for use — amphetamines,' Deaile recalled of his own Afghanistan mission, though he acknowledged policy may have changed since then. He also described taking 'sleeping pills to help them rest in the days leading up to the bombings.' Retired Lieutenant General Steve Basham, a former B-2 pilot who flew combat sorties during the 1999 Kosovo conflict, confirmed that the physical strain is more than incidental. 'We go through sleep studies, we actually go through nutritional education to be able to teach each one of us: one, what wakes us up and then what helps us go to sleep,' he said. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Basham's preferred inflight meal was as unassuming as the mission was demanding: 'turkey sandwiches on wheat bread, no cheese,' to minimise digestion issues. The compact design of the B-2 limits crew mobility. Each cockpit includes a makeshift cot tucked behind the seats where one pilot can rest while the other remains alert. Pilots are required to be in their seats during takeoff, midair refuelling, time over hostile territory and landing — leaving little opportunity for extended rest. Even bodily functions require creative solutions. The cockpit includes a chemical toilet without partitions, leading Deaile to explain, 'Privacy is the guy looks the other way.' To manage hydration needs, pilots drink around a bottle of water per hour and use 'piddle packs,' absorbent bags designed to contain urine. Deaile and his fellow pilot once amused themselves by calculating the cumulative weight of their used packs midflight — one of the few ways to pass time on a multi-day sortie. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD How the B-2 was able to stay in the air for 37 hours Despite the B-2's design capability to fly more than 6,000 nautical miles without refuelling, most long-duration missions necessitate multiple midair refuellings. This involves delicate manoeuvring at high altitude and in close formation with a tanker aircraft, whose refuelling boom must be blindly aligned with the bomber from behind. Pilots can't see the boom; instead, they rely on illuminated reference markers and practiced routines. 'Refuelling is done blind,' Basham explained. 'At night, especially on moonless flights, the task becomes what Basham called 'inherently dangerous.'' Fatigue exacerbates the difficulty of these manoeuvres, particularly on the return leg of such an extended operation. The pilots' concentration must remain razor-sharp despite dwindling energy levels and erratic sleep. 'The adrenaline goes away,' Basham said. 'You try to get a little bit of rest and you still got that one last refuelling.' Nevertheless, the prospect of returning to US airspace after hours over hostile terrain offers motivation. 'The one thing that's going to lift them up is they're going to enter the coast of the United States again and they're going to get that 'welcome home' from a US controller,' Basham added. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The first combat use of US' most powerful bomb Saturday's operation marked a significant moment in US military history with the first-ever combat deployment of the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). Weighing 30,000 pounds, the bomb is designed to destroy hardened underground facilities, such as the fortified installations reportedly targeted in Iran. Only the B-2 is capable of carrying these weapons due to their size and weight. Each of the seven B-2s in the raid is believed to have carried two of these munitions, totalling over a dozen MOPs dropped in the operation. Basham, reflecting on this unprecedented payload, remarked, 'It'll be interesting to hear from the pilots,' referencing the unusual shift in aircraft weight that occurs after releasing such enormous bombs. Despite the increased firepower and operational intensity, Pentagon officials reported no direct engagement from Iranian defence systems. Unlike earlier combat zones where B-2s flew amidst anti-aircraft fire or visible missile trails, this operation proceeded without a single shot being fired at either the bombers or their F-35 escorts. The human touch behind a $2 billion aircraft Despite its cutting-edge technology — including stealth capabilities that reduce detection by radar, heat, and sound — the success of any B-2 mission ultimately rests on its crew. The aircraft's two-person team assumes responsibilities once distributed across larger crews on older platforms like the B-1B or B-52. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The B-2's fly-by-wire control system, once lag-prone in its earlier iterations, has seen software improvements over the decades. These enhancements have made precision flight and refueling operations more responsive, but the human element remains irreplaceable. 'Our pilots make it look easy, but it's far from easy,' Basham noted. The complexity of a mission like this one extends beyond the cockpit. Hundreds of personnel on the ground worldwide are involved in mission planning, logistics, and maintenance. From simulator operators and intelligence analysts to aircraft technicians and mission briefers, a globe-spanning support infrastructure undergirds every moment in the air. What will replace the B-2 Spirit bombers Though the B-2 Spirit remains an elite symbol of US airpower, its era is winding down. The US Air Force plans to replace the B-2 and B-1 fleets with at least 100 B-21 Raiders over the coming decades. Still, with a per-hour operating cost of $65,000, the B-2 continues to deliver what other platforms cannot — deep-penetration stealth capability over great distances. The 37-hour Iran mission demonstrated the extraordinary resilience of its pilots. As Deaile reflected from his own record-setting flight decades ago: 'We just knew that if the president made the call, we were going to fly.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD With inputs from agencies
