SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Israel and Iran exchanged fire for a third day today. The Iranian Health Ministry has put the casualty number there at more than 220, but activists say it still could be higher. The official Israeli search and rescue service says 13 people have been killed in Iranian airstrikes since Friday. Here with the latest is NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Tel Aviv, where sirens have sounded. Welcome.
HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: Thank you.
DETROW: Where are you right now? How are you doing?
AL-SHALCHI: Yeah, I'm doing OK, thanks. I'm currently speaking to you from a bomb shelter, and that's why I may sound a little bit echoey. This is the second attack of the day so far. Sirens just went off, followed by huge booms, which usually means Iranian missiles being intercepted by Israel's powerful air defense system called the Iron Dome. We just got a notice from the Israeli military, though, that a number of places were hit, but it's still too early to tell exactly where. I mean, overnight, we actually experienced some of the worst of the strikes coming from Iran. The sirens went off a few times around 3 a.m. local, and we were in the shelter for a fair bit of time. Explosions were fierce, and some missiles dodged the Iron Dome and hit a number of neighborhoods there yesterday, too.
This morning, I visited the worst hit area called Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv. Over there, I saw search and rescue teams wearing orange vests. They were all around a massive high-rise that was completely gutted from one side - rubble, mangled metal from inside of buildings all over the place, shattered windows, glass on roads. The paramedics I talked to said they were still looking for three people trapped under the debris. Six people were killed there. I met 61-year-old Kopchak Ilana. She said that she was in her home's bomb shelter when the missile hit nearby.
KOPCHAK ILANA: Everything is shaking. I don't know what to say, speechless. It's a disaster. I can't eat. I can't sleep.
AL-SHALCHI: I mean, Hadeel, Israelis are not strangers to rocket fire and sirens and bomb shelters. But looking at some of the images of this destruction, this really, from here at least, feels different.
AL-SHALCHI: Yeah. Well, and absolutely - I mean, Israelis are actually normally nonchalant about missile fire, or they've become that way. You know, they live near Gaza, where Hamas has fired rockets for years into Israel, Lebanon, where Hezbollah has fired rockets also. But this is different. This kind of destruction to residential infrastructure and military targets and people being killed is something many Israelis haven't seen before. And, you know, I did speak to an Israeli friend today over coffee, and he said, I feel like we got a taste - a small taste of what Palestinians in Gaza have been experiencing from Israeli airstrikes on a daily basis and at any moment.
DETROW: What do we know at this moment about what's happening in Iran?
AL-SHALCHI: Well, we know that Israel has been going for energy sources since last night. Iran's oil ministry said that a fuel and gasoline depot in north Tehran was hit, so was one of the country's largest oil refineries in Tehran's north. Also, two main Iranian energy sites offshore, in the south of Iran, were also targeted. And then the Israeli military said that it hit the Mashhad airport in eastern Iran. They said it was the deepest strike in the country that they've done. And, you know, today, President Trump called on Israel and Iran to make a deal. And he said that, quote, "many calls and meetings now taking place." But neither Iran nor Israel have said anything about those calls or meetings. And so, for now, they're both committed to exchanging fire.
DETROW: That is NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Tel Aviv. Thank you so much.
AL-SHALCHI: You're very welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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