The price we have to pay' Israelis count cost in lives and damaged properties

Israelis Count Cost In Lives And Damaged Properties

- Emma Graham-Harrison

The Iranian missile blew the door off the White City museum celebrating Bauhaus Tel Aviv, and shattered the windows of the coffee shop down the road, where cinnamon buns and salads sat in the display case ready for a relaxed summer day that would never come.

In the ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood of Bnei Brak another missile collapsed a school, killing an 80-year-old man. A third hit partway up a high-rise tower in manicured, suburban Petah Tikvah, destroying a reinforced safe room and killing the family inside.

Destruction landed randomly across Israel's biggest metropolitan area on Sunday, the third night of Iranian missile attacks, crossing social, economic and religious divides to kill eight people, injure more than 100 and leave many more homeless.

After Israel launched the war with attacks on Iranian military commanders and the assassinations of top nuclear scientists early on Friday morning, Iran vowed revenge.

Since then more than 20 missiles have evaded sophisticated defences to cause devastation unprecedented in contemporary Israel. While some appear to have targeted strategic sites, many have landed in residential areas far from known military installations.