Scud Attacks on Israel

In the early hours of 18 January 1991, a day after the American-led coalition began its air war against Iraq, the first Iraqi Scud missiles struck Tel Aviv and Haifa. Saddam Hussein hoped to draw Israel into the war and break the coalition's Arab members away. Over six weeks about forty Scuds hit Israel, most of them around Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan, damaging thousands of homes. Fearing chemical warheads, the government had given every citizen a gas mask kit, and at each siren families shut themselves into a sealed room, its windows taped with plastic sheeting, and listened to the radio for the all-clear. Few people were killed by the blasts themselves, but dozens more died of heart attacks and suffocation in gas masks.

At the request of President George H. W. Bush, Yitzhak Shamir's government held back from striking Iraq, a first for Israel; American Patriot batteries were rushed to the country. The war ended on 28 February 1991, which was Purim. The Scuds showed how exposed Israel's home front was and pushed it to speed up the Arrow missile defense program and to create the IDF Home Front Command in 1992.