IDF: 80-90% of Iranian missiles intercepted, but 24 Israelis killed in attacks

The IDF on Monday provided its first statistics of the war on its shoot down success against Iran's ballistic missiles, setting it at 80-90%, with only about 5-10% of ballistic missiles hitting actual residential areas.

Eight more Israeli civilians were killed in Iran's Sunday-Monday middle-of-the-night attacks, bringing the total number of deaths to 24, with one more missing person expected to be declared dead in the coming hours.

From a salvo of around 40 ballistic missiles at 4:00 a.m., raising the total number of ballistic missiles to around 350, there were hits in Tel Aviv, Petach Tikva, and Bnei Brak, leading to deaths.

To date, the Iranian missile salvos have focused on the Gush Dan/Tel Aviv/central Israel area, the Haifa area, and the Beersheba area.

The IDF said that the Israeli air force's success in destroying dozens of missile launchers and many missiles has reduced the pace of Iranian missiles launched from launching hundreds at a time to dozens at a time.

The key to surviving an Iranian attack

At the hit at the Da Vinci area of Tel Aviv, there was an almost direct hit between two safe rooms, and all of the civilians in the safe rooms survived.

Even in that case, those civilians in their safe rooms directly one floor above the hit and one floor below hit - meaning very close by - all survived.

In contrast, a civilian on the fourth floor of the same building and a civilian in an adjacent building, neither of whom went to safe areas, were both killed.

Likewise, nine civilians in Bat Yam who did not go to stairwells which they could have reached, were all killed, and the IDF believes they could have survived in the stairwells.

Some civilians in Rishon Lezion also could have survived in safe areas, but died since they did not evacuate.

To date, no building has collapsed completely even from a direct hit.

This is somewhat even better than expected given that the Iranian ballistic missiles carry a half ton of explosives, gather up tremendous speed and energy from traveling up to the atmosphere and back down, and from the shockwave of the hit.

For example, in Bat Yam, dozens of buildings, even some hundreds of meters away, had some damage from the shock wav, though they were not hit directly.

There have also been hits in open areas, even in Tel Aviv, which do not cause significant damage.

Pressed that the IDF should be evacuating elderly persons to safer areas who do not have safe rooms in their homes and cannot walk fast enough to get to a public bomb shelter or stairwell, the IDF said that running after hundreds of thousands of such people would not be possible.

Moreover, the IDF said that civilians have the right to decide to leave their residence and to travel to a public bomb shelter or even schools which have been opened for civilians.

This is why the IDF is giving multiple pre-warning warnings, some 30 minutes out from an attack, noted the military, so civilians can leave before the siren warning which only comes around 90 seconds before the missiles arrive.

In addition, the IDF said that they are proud that most civilians have stayed in their homes, as in dark scenarios, there were concerns that tens of thousands of civilians might flee the Tel Aviv area for the desert.

This would not have necessarily made them more safe, would have harmed the functioning and morale of the state, and would have represented a new challenge for the IDF and the government to provide necessities.

The IDF said that it was considering altering the current arrangement in which the entire Israeli business market is effectively closed and allowing a staged reopening of some sort depending on whether Iran's ballistic missile power gets reduced in the coming days.