In the latest escalation in the south last week, Islamic Jihad terrorists launched a rocket that hit the crowded Gan Yavneh intersection in Israel's south on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. Miraculously, there were no fatalities and few injuries. Channel 13 News spoke with the survivors who were at the intersection when the rocket hit, several of whom reunited at the scene of the incident.
Seconds before the rocket landed at the intersection in a direct hit with a deafening explosion, a video of the incident shows a car passing through the exact spot where the rocket hit. It was the car of Eyal Makis, who was driving from his home in Ashkelon to his office in Nes Tziona.
"The light was green," Eyal said. "I crossed it quickly and as I crossed it, I hear a boom from behind me. I saw a 'cloud' in the mirror."
"And then I came to you," Eyal said to Molly, who was also at the intersection when the rocket hit. " I saw you and the dog."
Molly Hasson Sherman volunteers at a shelter for battered women with her dog Ice and she insisted on going in that day since the children were waiting for her and Ice.
"The whole way there, I was planning in my head what I would do if something happened," Molly said. "If it happens now, I'm stopping here. If it happens there, I'll stop there. I crossed through the intersection. I said to myself, 'Great, wonderful - in three seconds, I'll turn and I'll be in a safer area.'"
"I see the rocket. My first thought was that it was landing on me. There was an explosion that's impossible to describe. The first word that came out of my mouth was 'Ice.'"
Eyal - despite his own shock and fear - ran to Molly's car to check on her. "If there would have been a red light, I would have been stuck there," Eyal added. "The results would have been different. [Being here] takes me back to it and it's hard. It's not simple. I truly was lucky. There were many miracles here."
Daniel, a bus driver, was about to make a left turn at the intersection when the rocket fell. The camera on his bus recorded his reaction - a look of utter shock and panic on his face. "Suddenly I saw it. It was like I was watching television or a movie. Suddenly I saw the 'special effects' right in front of me. I couldn't even swallow. I didn't know what to do. I got off the bus. The whole windshield was cracked, everything was shattered. And then I understood how lucky I was."
Sergei wasn't quite as lucky as the other drivers who left their vehicles unscathed. The shrapnel from the rocket shattered his vehicle's windshield and he incurred wounds on his face. He was hospitalized but is now recuperating at home.
"Suddenly I heard a boom," Sergei said. "My vehicle shook back and forth. I felt I was wounded but I didn't understand what was going on. I looked out the windows but I didn't see anyone. All the shrapnel landed on my car, on me. It's difficult for me. I don't want to see the place it happened. It was a terrifying moment in my life."
Two days after the incident, the survivors gathered at a synagogue in Gan Yavneh to say "Birkat HaGomel," a special blessing of gratitude said after surviving a dangerous experience. The survivors, who under normal circumstances would probably never have met each other, have formed a bond. When they said the blessing, they had Sergei in mind, who is still recovering at home.