The Gulf War and the Scud Missiles
Thirty-nine Iraqi missiles fell on Israeli cities; the country sat in sealed rooms in gas masks, yet almost no one was killed directly.
Saddam Hussein, who had invaded Kuwait in the summer of 5750, promised to 'burn half of Israel', and when the coalition attacked him he fired missiles at a country that was not in the war. Between 17 January and 25 February 5751, thirty-nine Scud missiles fell on Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan and Haifa.
Life took on a strange shape. Everyone received a gas mask and an atropine injector, since chemical warheads were expected. Every flat had a sealed room with taped windows. At the siren families put on masks and waited. Schools closed and infants were given protective cots. For the first time since 5708 the government chose not to retaliate, at America's request, so as not to break the Arab coalition against Iraq—an agonising decision for a country whose entire doctrine rested on response.
Some four thousand homes were damaged and hundreds were injured, but only two people were killed directly by the impacts. Many in Israel called it an open miracle.
The war ended on 28 February 5751, which was Purim. The coincidence with the festival of rescue from a ruler of those same Mesopotamian lands was noticed by everyone.
How we know
Sources
Tanakh
- Tehillim 91 — “he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High” — the psalm of the sealed rooms
- Megillat Esther — the Purim parallel: the war ended on Purim itself
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Megillah 11a — Babylon and Achashverosh — the parallel heard in the sermons of those weeks
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach’s rulings on Shabbat in wartime — Shabbat, sirens and gas masks — the halakhah of those weeks
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.