On June 15 at around four in the afternoon, an Israel Defense Forces soldier from the Home Front Command helped a woman with her bags as she evacuated a damaged apartment in Bat Yam. Her husband was around the corner. He had parked a white car near a small grocery store, one of the few businesses open in the damaged neighborhood. It had taken him time to find parking as the traffic on the nearby streets was bumper-to-bumper.

The woman was one of many residents in a block of buildings badly damaged by an Iranian missile attack overnight between June 14 and 15.

More than twelve hours later, most of the residents had been able to pack some of their belongings in suitcases and bags and move away from the neighborhood. Up to sixty buildings were damaged in the attack and at least seven people were killed, and 200 injured.

I came to see the aftermath of the destruction in Bat Yam, a beach community just south of Tel Aviv. The breeze, which can be felt a mile from the sea, snakes its way through the alleyways and up the streets that ascend slightly from the shore.

The beaches are closed due to the war with Iran, which is now in its fourth day, but restaurants are open near the water. The outdoor gyms are also open, with men doing shoulder presses and working to improve their physique. The playgrounds that also dot the shoreline and neighborhoods nearby are largely empty. People are keeping children at home; schools are closed.

Home Front Command forces at the scene where a ballistic missile fired from Iran hit and caused damage in Bat Yam, central Israel. June 15, 2025. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
Home Front Command forces at the scene where a ballistic missile fired from Iran hit and caused damage in Bat Yam, central Israel. June 15, 2025. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
While the coastline is still full of people, even if they are hanging back from the beaches, the neighborhoods that form a grid of blocks stretching inland are largely quiet. Around a kilometer from the site of the Iranian missile attack there is a quiet park, ringed by three-story multi-apartment homes. The park has an area for dogs, with a metal fence around it, and two small playgrounds.

There is only one family who has come, with a white blanket and their child. Other people have come to walk their dogs. There are more than 100 birds on an electric wire that stretches the length of the park overhead. There are also cats in abundance. There appear to be more birds, cats, and dogs than people due to the war that is keeping a lot of people home.

DOWN THE street, across a block of homes, is the street where the missile struck. An apartment tower has had its side ripped open by the destruction, with balconies and concrete hanging. Next to the damaged building is a large construction site and a new apartment building.

Beyond them are rows of homes, older apartments built in the 1960s and ‘70s. These homes are damaged: Some of the doors and windows are ripped open, with concrete pockmarked by shrapnel and air conditioning units ripped from external walls.

IDF soldiers are working to secure the area

Hundreds of IDF soldiers with red helmets from the Home Front Command are helping to secure the area and sift through the rubble. In the morning hours there were people missing. The army has trained for this – they have a Search and Rescue Brigade specially trained to go into damaged and collapsed buildings.

I walked around the destroyed neighborhood. Some streets are open but police have cordoned off most of the area to keep onlookers out. Many people have come to see what happened, a mix of local residents, media representatives, and others. Police are encouraging people to adhere to the IDF’s guidelines: to stay near shelters and not gather.

On one street, two hundred meters from the impact site, there are shops that are damaged: a nargillah shop, a beauty salon, a hot dog stand. The windows are broken and doors are ripped off. Some of the glass has already been cleaned from the street. In another new building that appears to house offices, there are workers cleaning debris and piling it in a truck.

AT AROUND four in the afternoon, there is a sudden buzz of activity. Soldiers and others begin searching for shelters. An “extreme alert” is blasting on the phones. Several minutes later, sirens sound. The streets that had been bustling with locals, press, soldiers, and police minutes ago are now deserted. The lines of cars waiting to get through are no longer there. The shelters are full.

Some people stand outside their shelters, in hallways, or poking their heads out onto the street, having a cigarette. This is a working class neighborhood; there is a lot of diversity here. Older men and women speak Russian. Several people speak Arabic.

After a few minutes the siren stops. People begin to emerge slowly. One man, a security guard, his Glock strapped to the outside of his blue pants and black belt, walks with an urgency down the road. He’s the lone figure now outside.

Near the impact zone, Home Front Command personnel have left their vehicles, stretchers, helmets, protective glasses, and other equipment to go to shelter. Now they also begin to come back. Onlookers sneak in through a police barrier of red tape and take photos. The police return and ask the onlookers to move back.

Down the road by the shops, two young women talk about their fear in the wake of the attack. I ask them where they will stay tonight. They say they will sleep in a nearby underground bomb shelter. Around the corner, the woman who has evacuated says she will stay in a hotel with her husband.

Back at the park that has been colonized by birds and cats, a few more families have come out. Several men gossip about last night’s rocket fire. Other young men sit by a public chess table and have a cigarette. A small dog barks at a larger one; a man tries to separate them. Amid the war, there is quiet here in this neighborhood, so close to the destruction. The fighting dogs are the only conflict for now.