'We hear booms all the time.' Long Islanders in the Middle East share their experiences in wake of U.S.-Israeli military strike on Iran
Iran has been retaliating against US and Israeli strikes by sending out their own missiles, shutting down airports and leaving devastation across the Middle East.
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Long Islanders who live in the Middle East or are stuck there with no way to get home are dealing with the aftermath of Saturday's United States and Israel's joint military attack on Iran.
Iran has been retaliating against the strikes by sending its own missiles across the Middle East.
Aharon Ellis and Daniel Landau live in Bet Shemesh, Israel, where an Iranian missile fell Sunday. They are part of an Israeli nonprofit medical team who responded to the incident. They say the strike killed a handful of people and injured dozens more.
“You have all these people that are displaced because their homes were completely ripped apart,” Ellis said.
Ellis says teams have been rescuing people from destroyed buildings and helping them evacuate.
“Obviously nobody loves the war, but they understand that terror cannot happen again. It is inexcusable,” said Landau, a Dix Hills native.
Landau says he was in a bomb shelter nine different times on Saturday.
“So you can imagine the scene around us,” Landau said. “The experience that our families are going through is quite traumatic. But at the same time, we are resilient.”
“This is something that had to be,” Ellis said. “We had to make sure that Iran wouldn't have a nuclear weapon...At the end of the day, it’s something that most people will understand that this was something that had to be done. Is it comfortable? Is it peaceful? No. But it had to be done.”
The Iranian regime has targeted many other civilian areas across the Middle East in retaliation to the U.S.-Israeli military strikes. Major airports, including Dubai International Airport, have shut down after Iranian missiles struck them.
Donna Caltabiano is from Floral Park, but she’s currently sheltering in place at a hotel in Dubai.
“We hear booms all the time,” Caltabiano said. “The other night, we saw people looking up in the sky and we saw a white circle, which was probably a drone or something, that was shot down, and they left a puff of smoke up in the sky.”
She said she doesn’t know when she’ll be able to get home.
