Jewish prayer in an underground parking lot, distribution of candy in a shelter, or cries of joy in a Palestinian neighborhood: in Jerusalem, the Iranian missile attack on Israel is experienced very differently depending on where you are .
When the sirens sounded, hundreds of people at the central bus station in the western part of the city took shelter in the underground parking lot, obeying army directives.
Some begin reading psalms. Others consult their phones in a calm only disturbed by the detonations of the explosions which ring out outside: interceptions of projectiles by Israeli anti-aircraft defense missiles.
On the surface, the black sky is illuminated by streaks of light progressing from east to west and punctuated by explosions that resonate throughout the Holy City.
In a shelter in Musrara, a neighborhood in the west of the city, residents call friends and relatives in Israel to check on them or give theirs.
A man who prefers not to give his name told an AFP journalist: “We can put things into perspective but the children don’t really understand.” He distributes candy to them, “so they don’t have bad memories.”
Children are crying. Families continue to arrive as the different waves of alerts come, some apparently surprised: they had not heard of the threat despite repeated messages from the authorities echoed by the media for more than an hour.
Change of scenery and reaction in Silwan, Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, an area occupied and annexed by Israel since 1967.
“As soon as the Palestinians [du quartier] heard the first sirens, they began to whistle, then applaud and shout Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”) when the luminous trails of the rockets lit up the black sky, says a local resident. Here, people are not in shelters that they don’t have, but in the street or on the roofs, at the show, she adds.
In the west, as soon as the alert passed, Alon, aged 17, returned to his small DIY shop. “It’s been six months since I heard an alert in Jerusalem,” he said simply in reference to the first direct Iranian missile attack on Israeli territory, on the night of April 13-14. “I wasn’t afraid,” he assures us.