A car caught on fire Sunday afternoon in Holon after debris from the Iron Dome’s
interception of a Fajr-5 rocket shot toward the area fell on it.
“We know
it was a result of the Iron Dome interception but we are still trying to find
out where the shrapnel came from; whether it was a piece of the rocket or the
Iron Dome missile, we still don’t know,” police spokeswoman Orit Friedman told
The Jerusalem Post.
She explained firefighters and police forces, who
were posted nearby, arrived on the scene immediately and cleared out the
vehicle, which people on the site said was an Audi.
According to
Friedman, the driver was inside the car when he felt something fall on the roof,
drove a few meters to the bus station and decided to park and exit the car: “It
didn’t happen immediately, it took a few minutes [as] it was a process of
combustion,” she explained. The driver did not wish to speak to the
press.
“I was at work across the street, everybody went outside to check
out the smoke,” said Ziva Algabai, a witness on the site. “People were afraid to
go closer to see it, we thought it was an actual rocket hit,” she
continued.
“When you see this with your own eyes, there’s no doubt it’s
scary. You realize that that’s it, it’s really close to you.”
Maya
Janashvily was on a bus nearby as the siren was sound.
“The driver said
he couldn’t stop the bus, there was nowhere to go anyway, so we stayed inside,
and then we started seeing very very dark black smoke,” she told the Post,
standing by the bus station.
“It’s scary that this can happen from a
little piece of debris. It’s scary that we can’t do anything about this, only
pray,” Janashvily continued. “I am scared and I’m going back home now instead of
work, at least there I know where to go and what to do.”
Police were
investigating the cause of the fire.