Eilat, Israel – Piercing air raid sirens sound above the Israeli port city on the Red Sea.
Fighter jets thundered across the blue sky on Saturday.
A man pushing his child in a pram, not knowing where to go, rushed to take shelter under the overhanging concrete entrance to a closed shopping center.
A severely sunburned man stood up from his deck chair on a deserted beach and looked up to see if he could catch a glimpse of the drama unfolding above; he picked up his towel but hesitated, not knowing whether to run for shelter or continue to enjoy the morning rays.
A Russian woman and two Israeli men took refuge next to an abandoned and ruined brick house.
“This is Yemen,” one of the men said, pointing to the sky. The Israeli Air Force, he explained, is trying to intercept missiles fired over the Red Sea.
The sound of planes battling the threat in the skies and the lack of bomb shelters stood in stark contrast to other Israeli cities, such as Tel Aviv, where residents regularly face rocket attacks from Gaza and are well accustomed to going to the nearest shelter to protect themselves. wait for Iron Dome systems to intercept incoming projectiles.
In Eilat, the risk came from Yemen’s Houthi rebels firing missiles and drones from across the Red Sea – they were intercepted and destroyed before they could reach their targets.
The city is located in the southern tip of Israel, between Jordan and Egypt, approximately 50 km from Saudi Arabia.
A popular tourist resort with rows of high-rise hotels, it has also become home to Ukrainians and Russians who left their countries after the invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022.
Across the port, a large Jordanian flag is clearly visible over the city of Aqaba, where thousands of Eilat’s tourism workers originate.
“This war will last a long time”
Nacham Naim moved with his family to Eilat from his home near Gaza after Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israeli army outposts and surrounding villages on October 7.
Naim lost one of his best friends in the attack, which left him deeply traumatized. He said that although he feels safer in the port city, the threat from Yemen still looms large.
His sister, Liat Naim, added that with an increased Hezbollah threat in Lebanon from the north, it resembles a larger regional war in which Israel is surrounded by hostile actors.
Wherever they move in the country, they won’t feel completely safe, she said. “You can feel it in your gut; this war will last a long time.
Hea, 31, who came to Eilat to give her children a break from the constant alerts of air raid sirens around their home near the Gaza Strip, said: “I am not safe here either. You see, Yemen strikes here, nowhere is safe.”
A white-haired man with a pistol strapped to his hip and an Israeli flag stuck to the sleeve of his T-shirt, who did not want to be named, was driving a vertical lift bridge in the center of the city.
Crowds of people, many of whom had been evacuated from areas around Gaza on October 7, waited as a boat with a long mast navigated the narrow waterway.
For now, the risk to the city is negligible compared to other places in Israel, he said, because rockets fired from Yemen can take more than an hour to reach their target. American warships in the Red Sea and Israeli air forces have ample opportunity to shoot them down.
The risk may be low now, he said with a dismissive shrug, but if Hezbollah attacks in the north while Yemen attacks at the same time, it could be a “catastrophe” for the country. .
The Israeli military later announced that the air raid alert was issued Saturday morning after its “systems detected a suspicious target approaching Israeli territory.”