This is an existential war, as Netanyahu has always described it
Photo: Flash90
This column is being written from a public bomb shelter, our ears still ringing from the deafening roar of an impact on a street near our home in Rechovot. When we emerge, we’ll see the shattered glass and hear the rescue forces at the apocalyptic impact site.
The explosion, caused by a half-ton warhead, was unlike anything we’d ever experienced. We’d heard countless impacts by now — from Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and Gaza — but never anything so deafening.
It was the home front’s worst night since Saddam Hussein launched a barrage of Scud missiles at Israel during the 1990 Gulf War. Around the same time, a young Likud politician named Binyamin Netanyahu started talking about the Iranian nuclear threat, making its destruction his life’s mission.
On Thursday night, hours before the country awoke to the astonishing news of Israeli dominance of Iran’s skies, we were wakened by the roar of jets taking off from the Tel Nof airbase near our home. In peacetime, night flights end shortly after sunset, but in this protracted war, we’ve grown used to round-the-clock missions. Still, this time was different: The deafening noise of hundreds of jets taking off, struggling to gain altitude under the weight of heavy munitions, told us something extraordinary was underway.
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