MARCH 22, 2026: Multiple Missile Strikes Hit Tel Aviv Area; “Siren Fatigue” Sets In; Ben Gurion Airport Tightens Flight Restrictions

Tel Aviv Diary

It has been a difficult 24 hours in Israel. Last night, just before we completed and released the Tel Aviv Diary, reports emerged of a catastrophic missile strike on Arad, following an earlier attack on Dimona a few hours earlier. At the time, information was limited, but it has since become clear that in both cases the missiles carried full 400kg explosive warheads, which detonated on impact.

The most severe damage occurred in Arad, a desert town, located at a considerable distance from any major military installation. The missile struck between two buildings, and the resulting blast wave destroyed the facades of three buildings, rendering them uninhabitable, while causing significant damage to several others.

Approximately 120 people were evacuated for medical treatment from Arad last night, many of them by helicopter. Some of the injured, including small children and infants, remain on life support at Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva.

What is both disturbing and difficult to comprehend is that none of those injured were in the bomb shelters available in each of the buildings. Some residents chose not to go to a protected space, citing exhaustion from repeated alerts; others expected they would not be affected, noting that Arad had not previously been directly hit. Some may have believed they were sufficiently protected. Whatever the reasoning, Homefront authorities maintain that many of the injuries could likely have been avoided.

Some Dimona residents claimed they did not have sufficient time to reach shelter, but that appears to apply mainly to those who began moving only after the final incoming missile alert siren sounded. Those who responded to the initial warning siren had approximately seven minutes—which provided more than enough time to reach one of the many existing protected safe spaces.

There are also reports that, in some cases, bomb shelters in Dimona were being used as synagogues, raising additional questions about access and preparedness at the very moment they were most needed.

COALITION MEMBERS HEADS TO ARAD

Nearly all members of the government traveled to Arad following the attack. Prime Minister Netanyahu also visited the city, where he stressed to residents the importance of entering protected spaces to avoid injury. That point is valid, as noted above, but the broader issue remains: adequate safe spaces are not available in all parts of the country.

When asked how long the war would continue, Netanyahu replied that it would last “until we reach total victory.” What, precisely, constitutes “total victory,” however, still remains unclear.

TEL AVIV’S TURN …

Today it was Tel Aviv’s turn. The night had been quiet, but at 7:00 a.m. the first missile alert of the day began to wail. When that incident ended, I took Milo out for our morning walk. But before we could finish our intended route, my phone started to vibrate and another siren began to blare. A new missile was heading towards central Israel.

As of 8:00 p.m, Tel Aviv had received six missile alerts five of which involved actual salvos. Tonight at midnight, as we were about to publish today’s Tel Aviv Diary entry, the preliminary alert came of another attack on the Tel Aviv area, which was followed by missile sirens a few moments later.

In three of the incidents, the damage was caused by fragments from munitions that exploded at various locations, from Petah Tikva to Holon to Bat Yam, and in Tel Aviv itself. The noon barrage included cluster munitions that detonated just a few blocks north, south, and east of our home. As the shelter doors were closing, we could hear distant explosions.

Fortunately, these were cluster munitions, and as I wrote previously, while these explosives can cause damage and pose a lethal risk to anyone exposed outdoors, they are significantly less dangerous to those inside buildings, and especially to those in shelters.

FATIGUE, WIDESPREAD WARNINGS, AND RISING RISK

However, a different problem is now beginning to emerge: fatigue. Repeated alerts are taking their toll, and people are growing weary of constantly heading down to shelters. One of my neighbors, an older woman who lives on the third floor, chose to take the stairs this afternoon rather than the elevator.

When I asked why she had not used the elevator earlier, given the five to six minutes of warning, she explained that she had already come down several times for alerts that did not result in an attack.

The longer this situation continues, the more difficult it will be for people to consistently follow safety instructions. If fewer respond promptly to early warnings, the risk of injuries and potentially fatalities will rise.

It’s worth explaining for our readers outside of the country the methodology the IDF’s Home Front Command uses to alert citizens of incoming missile attacks from Iran. Since the October 7th war, Israelis found themselves for the first time under attack by ballistic missiles from far away, first from the Houthis in Yemen, and then from Iran. Due to the long distance these missiles travel, the IDF Home Front Command added an additional “Preparation Warning,” alerting citizens of an upcoming missile attack.

The purpose of this warning is to allow citizens to improve their physical position relative to a shelter, before incoming missiles reach striking range. Due to the complex nature in determining precise missile impact points, the “Preparedness Warning” is issued across a much wider area—encompassing multiple “polygon” sectors, only some of which will ultimately require a full air raid siren.

In a number of cases, these preliminary warnings have not been followed by siren alerts in all affected areas. This has, over time, contributed to a degree of erosion in public trust in the alert system.

Throughout the country, once air-raid sirens wail, civilians typically have 90 seconds to reach shelter before incoming munitions, or interception debris, reach the ground. This is not the case, however, for rockets either from Lebanon or from Gaza. In those instances, there is no pre-warning, and the time between the siren and impact can sometimes be measured in seconds.

LAYERED DEFENSE, LIMITED SUPPLY

There are increasing indications that Israel is relying more heavily on systems such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow 2, to intercept incoming missiles, while employing Arrow 3 more selectively. The former systems intercept threats much closer to the targets.

According to reports cleared by the military censor, one factor is the high cost of Arrow 3 interceptors. In practice, however, it is also likely a question of limited supply, with efforts underway to conserve existing stockpiles. This evening, a missile launched toward the south was intercepted by an Arrow 3 system outside the atmosphere, well before reaching Israel. If sufficient interceptors were available, that level of defense could potentially be applied more broadly. As things stand, however, constraints on interceptor supply appear to be a significant factor shaping deployment decisions.

FLIGHT LIMITS TIGHTEN AT BEN GURION

Today, officials in the Airport Authority conducted discussions about further restricting flights from Ben Gurion Airport. The concern is that cluster munitions, which disperse bomblets over wide areas, increase the risk to aircraft on the ground, particularly during taxiing. The possibility of such an incident is being taken seriously, and any additional restrictions would carry immediate operational and symbolic consequences, impacting travel and reinforcing a broader sense of disruption.

Tonight, a decision was made to limit flights to one per hour, with no more than 50 passengers per aircraft departing Ben Gurion Airport.

ULTIMATUM REGARDING THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ

President Trump has warned Iran that if the Straits of Hormuz are not reopened by tomorrow, the United States may strike Iranian power plants. Such a move would likely have a substantial impact on civilian infrastructure inside Iran.

In response, Iran has threatened to target energy infrastructure across the Middle East, including in Israel, though the feasibility of such actions remains unclear. The head of the Israel Electric Corporation said that even if one or more power plants were damaged, the country would still be able to maintain electricity supply.

For additional perspective on the U.S. position and its implications, I discussed the issue in an interview on i24 News last night, which can be viewed via the video link below.

A PATTERN OF VIOLENCE, A LACK OF CONSEQUENCES

Last night, a large group of settlers attacked Palestinians in three villages. The army arrived at the scene, but no settlers were detained and the violence was not halted. Tonight, attacks continued on other Palestinian villages.

The case reported a few days ago, in which an Israel police unit killed a Palestinian family has not been seriously investigated, according to reports. The police who were involved were not asked to give statements, instead the police investigation unit has accepted the police officers written accounts. There is concern that the investigation will be terminated with no action being taken. The question many are now asking is how much worse the situation can become.

BUSINESS NEWS

Azrieli Group

Azrieli Group has completed the leasing of office space in its Azrieli Sarona Tower, marking a significant milestone following the departure of Meta from the building earlier this year. According to the company’s 2025 financial report, five new lease agreements signed in the fourth quarter covered approximately 12,000 square meters, filling the remaining space vacated by Meta. In total, the company has now re-leased all 31,000 square meters that became available after Meta relocated to the nearby Landmark project. As part of its exit, Meta paid Azrieli compensation of approximately 14 million shekels for leaving before the end of its lease.

The rapid absorption of such a large volume of office space stands out against a more challenging broader office market in central Israel. Demand along the Menachem Begin corridor—from Savidor Central station southward—remains strong, with rental prices holding steady at 180–185 shekels per square meter, even exceeding the rates previously paid by Meta. The new tenants include a mix of Israeli startups and global technology firms such as Wonderful, EON, ScaleOps, Okta, and Jeen.ai, reinforcing the tower’s position as a hub for high-tech companies. The successful leasing underscores the continued strength of prime locations in Tel Aviv, even as other parts of the market face softer demand.

Manifold

Israeli startup Manifold has raised $8 million in a Seed funding round to advance its platform designed to secure the growing use of autonomous AI agents within enterprise environments. The company said the funds will be used to accelerate development of its AI Detection and Response (AIDR) platform, which aims to address a rapidly emerging gap in cybersecurity. As organizations increasingly deploy AI agents across endpoints, Manifold is positioning itself to secure what it sees as the next major attack surface in enterprise systems.

The company argues that first-generation AI security tools are no longer sufficient. While earlier solutions focused primarily on analyzing prompts or monitoring traditional endpoints, they struggle to address autonomous agents that not only interpret information but also take independent action. This challenge is becoming more urgent as adoption accelerates: an estimated 85% of developers already use AI coding assistants such as GitHub Copilot, and similar tools are expected to spread across the broader workforce. These agents operate with access to source code, production systems, and CI/CD pipelines, creating a new category of risk that existing tools like EDR are not designed to handle.

Manifold’s platform seeks to address this gap by focusing on real-time visibility into what AI agents actually do, rather than what they are instructed to do. The system monitors the actions agents take—such as commands executed, systems accessed, and tools used—mapping their behavior across the enterprise and flagging anomalies as they occur. Notably, the solution is agentless, requiring no additional software installation on endpoints and allowing deployment within days on existing infrastructure. As AI agents expand beyond developers to the broader knowledge workforce, Manifold is betting that this type of monitoring and control will become essential to maintaining enterprise security in the AI era.

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TODAY IN JEWISH HISTORY

Dachau: The First Camp Opens

On March 22, 1933, less than two months after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, Heinrich Himmler, then police president of Munich, announced the opening of the Dachau concentration camp, located on the grounds of a former munitions factory about ten miles northwest of Munich.

The first prisoners to arrive were not primarily Jews but political enemies of the new Nazi regime: Communists, Social Democrats, trade union leaders, and journalists. The Nazis were quite open about it, issuing a press release announcing the camp’s opening and its capacity for 5,000 prisoners. In this sense, Dachau was not initially conceived as a death camp but as a place to neutralize political opposition, to remove anyone who might organize resistance to Hitler’s consolidation of power in those first critical months of the Third Reich.

Over the twelve years of its operation, Dachau’s character evolved into something far more sinister. Jews became an increasingly prominent part of its prisoner population, and after Kristallnacht in November 1938, more than 10,000 Jewish men were suddenly swept into Dachau alone. The camp became a model and training ground for the entire SS concentration camp system, its brutal routines, its hierarchy of terror, and its dehumanizing methods were exported to every camp that followed.

Prisoners were subjected to forced labor, starvation, medical experimentation, and mass killings. By the time American forces liberated Dachau on April 29, 1945, more than 200,000 people had passed through its gates, and tens of thousands had perished there. The camp’s opening on that March day in 1933 marked not just the birth of an institution but the first visible infrastructure of what would become the Holocaust.