Oak Park man in Israel describes missile attacks: 'I've never seen that many'

Man from Oak Park takes shelter in Tel Aviv amid Israel-Iran conflict

Yosef Klein explains what it's like when the sirens go off and the bombs begin to fall during his stay in Israel.

FOX 2 - Both Israel and Iran, exchanging military strikes leaving hundreds killed with tremendous damage and as of Tuesday, no end in sight.

Local perspective:

Yosef Klein is an attorney from Oak Park experiencing the conflict first-hand.

"With my own two eyes, I’m looking, I'm watching a missile travel over the neighborhood," he said.

Klein, 38, just happened to be near Tel Aviv when the siren went off, and the missiles struck last Friday.

"A clear sound like a woooo, it's extraordinarily loud, everybody hears it," he said.

And then he looked out of his window.

"It always looks like fireworks a little bit," he said. "But it's a scary thing, though, because I’ve never seen that many."

Klein said without Israel’s missile defense and safe rooms - the casualties would be in the hundreds of thousands.

"The Iranian missile threat is at a different level than the threat was from Gaza or from the Houthis," he said. "Basically it just comes down to, unfortunately they’ve been able to land things in Israel."

Yosef says since 1992, buildings in Israel are required to have a safe room.

"I’ll show you what it looks like," he said. "This is the safe room door. It starts with the door, you can see there are these massive steel pieces that stick out and touch into the recpticles on the sides. Six inches, maybe a little more. And that's concrete, that's at the top also and it is all around the entire room. It's got to have reinforced concrete."

Most safe rooms double as a bedroom - when it’s not a shelter during an attack.

"It’s helpful, especially if you have kids to use it as a bedroom, because then the kids are already there," he said.

Despite the sirens going off, the running to a safe room, and then seeing of destruction - Yosef, his wife, and three kids remain hopeful.

"It’s very real. It’s very real, but Godspeed to the soldiers and God willing, we hope for peace real soon," Klein said. "We are all praying for it."