Kayed Hussein stands near remains of an Iranian ballistic missile that fell in his grove in the West Bank on March 26.Amnon Gutman/The Globe and Mail
The missile that landed in a fig tree on Kayed Hussein’s property is a parable for the unfairness of modern war.
It was just before 8:30 a.m. on a recent Thursday when the giant metal tube − the fuel tank of an Iranian ballistic missile fired toward nearby Jerusalem − bounced once, without exploding, before coming to rest atop the flattened tree.
It likely fell into Mr. Hussein’s yard after separating from the rest of the missile when it was hit by Israeli air defences. There was no warning.
The scream of air-raid sirens and the dash to bomb shelters have been fixtures of life across much of the Middle East over the five-plus weeks since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. But in some parts of the region – notably in Lebanon, which Israel considers a second front in the war, and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Mr. Hussein lives – there are no air-raid sirens and little shelter to seek.
That was on display during Israel’s massive bombardment of Lebanon on Wednesday. It killed more than 200 people, making it one of the deadliest days of the war.
A firefighter in Beirut, Lebanon, takes a moment Thursday to sit on a vehicle destroyed by an Israeli airstrike the previous day.Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Israel often sends out social-media alerts telling residents to evacuate an area before an attack, but it gave no such warning ahead of the 10-minute wave of air strikes on Wednesday. The Israeli military said it was targeting Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia allied with Iran, and blamed civilian casualties on “Hezbollah’s cynical exploitation of Lebanese civilians as human shields in order to safeguard its operations.”
More than 1,700 Lebanese have been killed since the start of the conflict.
Iran has a system of air-raid sirens built during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, though it has little in the way of public bomb shelters. More than 3,600 Iranians have been killed since the start of the campaign, which may or may not be on pause amid confusion over the state and terms of a 14-day ceasefire announced Tuesday by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Gulf Arab states of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain all have modern air-raid sirens and shelters, with the United States helping to defend their skies from its military bases in those countries. Twenty-six civilians of the Gulf states, as well as 13 U.S. soldiers, have been killed in Iranian attacks on the region.
Israelis, meanwhile, have become accustomed to an exhausting routine after 30 months of near-continuous war dating back to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault on the country. That attack has been followed by a succession of wars between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Hezbollah and now the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.
A women seeks shelter in Kiryat Shmona, Israel, as sirens warn of rockets launched from Lebanon on Thursday.Amir Levy/Getty Images
Mobile phones in Israel have been buzzing several times a day since the start of the latest war with alerts of missile launches. The warnings are followed by sirens that sound in cities and towns deemed to be in the path of incoming projectiles.
Israelis then head into the nearest bomb shelter – often a purpose-built safe room in the basement of a house – to wait for the all-clear signal. Israel’s advanced Tzeva Adom, or “Red Alert,” warning system delivers near-pinpoint information, with alarms sounding only in the city or region that’s being targeted. The vast majority of the more than 500 ballistic missiles Iran has fired at Israel since the start of the conflict on Feb. 28 have been shot down by Israel’s multi-layered air defences.
Some missiles have gotten through, however. At least 23 Israelis have died in missile attacks by Iran and Hezbollah since the start of the war. The number of injuries has also risen in recent weeks, with the Israeli military accusing Iran of using cluster munitions that disperse as many as 80 bomblets over their targets.
Still, the sirens and shelters of Israel are an unavailable luxury to Palestinians living in the West Bank, which has been under Israeli military occupation since a 1967 war.
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While the West Bank isn’t an intentional Iranian target, the Palestinian Authority has reported 270 incidents of missiles or missile fragments landing in the area. Six people have been killed, including four women who died when a missile struck a beauty salon in the Palestinian village of Beit Awwa on March 18.
Mr. Hussein says members of his family could easily have been killed on March 26 when the fuel tank landed in his grove of olive and fig trees. Footage taken by a security camera that he keeps trained on his trees shows the debris landing just 20 metres from a small hut on the property.
There are no air-raid sirens in Mr. Hussein’s village of Biteen − or, for that matter, in the nearby Palestinian capital, Ramallah, which is home to nearly 100,000 people. Mr. Hussein said that even if there had been an alert, there is no shelter for him or his family to run to.
“We sometimes hear the sirens from the settlements, but there is no warning for us,” he said, referring to the Jewish settlements that dot the West Bank. “There’s no place for us to take refuge – all we can do is stand by a wall or under a tree.”
Fourteen minutes after the impact captured by Mr. Hussein’s security camera, the Israeli military reported it had intercepted an Iranian ballistic missile fired toward central Israel.
The missile remains that landed on Kayed Hussein's property. He said he wishes the war would end.Amnon Gutman/The Globe and Mail
Omar Awadallah, the deputy foreign affairs minister for the Palestinian Authority, said Israel, as the occupying power, should be providing the same sirens and shelters to Palestinians as it does to Israelis. He also accused the Israeli military of letting missiles fall, rather than intercepting them, if it was determined they were on course to land in the West Bank.
He said this was “100 per cent” what happened in the strike on the beauty salon in Beit Awwa. “They want also to get our side more angry at Iran, to make us feel that Iran is attacking the Palestinians,” he said in an interview at the Foreign Affairs Ministry building in Ramallah.
The Israeli military, in response to a question from The Globe and Mail, said it had not received any requests from the Palestinian Authority to build shelters or install sirens in the West Bank. Any such request would be “thoroughly reviewed,” it said.
Mr. Hussein said he just wants the regionwide conflict to come to an end.
“No one wants this war. It’s difficult for everybody.”