‘The sky was filled with missiles:’ Buffalo attorney’s family in Israel during Hamas attacks, headed home now

“Two bombs exploded in the water about 60 feet from us and shells were exploding overhead,” Steven Cohen said. “At the beginning, everyone just assumed this was part of typical terrorist attacks that are almost a daily event in Israel. But then, when the sky was filled with hundreds of missiles, and not just one or two stragglers, it became clear this was something else.”

It was an all-out surprise attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas, which fired thousands of rockets on four cities, including Tel Aviv, killing hundreds of people and wounding thousands.

Cohen, an attorney with Tiveron Law in Amherst, was vacationing with his family in Tel Aviv since Wednesday, their first family trip in years. With him are his wife, Pam, sons Scott and Marc and Marc’s wife, Emily, who is six months pregnant.

After three days stuck in Tel Aviv, the family made it out on a flight Monday morning to Dubai and were hoping to head back to Buffalo, Cohen said.

When the bombing started, the Cohens quickly drove back to their hotel in nearby Tel Aviv, where they and dozens of other tourists were directed to take shelter in stairwells as mortars exploded in the distance.

They were staying on the 10th floor, but walked down the stairs as low as they could, “around the third floor until it was jammed with people,” Cohen said via text message because phone service was compromised.