Sderot resident Lior Yemini was sleeping in the home he shares with his parents late Saturday night when an air raid siren woke them just seconds before shrapnel slammed into the residence.
"I had been sleeping when suddenly I heard my parents running," Yemini said. "We got up in the nick of time."
The IDF said later that the shrapnel, which was believed to have been remnants of a rocket fired from Gaza, was likely fragments of the Iron Dome missile defense system used to intercept enemy projectiles.
Sderot, which is just 2km from the Gaza border, has been the frequent target of rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled Strip.
"We ran to the bomb shelter and heard an explosion," Yemini said. "When we went outside we saw all the damage."
The blast killed some of the family's pet birds. "Only this morning did we really see the damage," Yemini said.
A 58-year-old man was also lightly hurt in the incident; two women were sustained minor injuries while running for shelter and two more are suffering from shock.
For Yemini, his family's escape was a miracle.
"The wall that was hit belongs to my parents' bedroom. If they had not run, it could have ended very differently," he said.
Neighbor Yaakov Kabak, who was lightly wounded by the shrapnel, said he felt something wrong with his leg and when he looked down, saw the blood.
Yaakov's wife Laberolina said that their house does not have a shelter and after bracing for the hit, she ran outside, yelling for someone to call an ambulance.
"I was so shocked, I did not know what to do," she said.
The IDF said Sunday it has closed the fishing zone off the Gaza coast and carried out fresh airstrikes against Hamas positions in the enclave in response to the rocket fire on Israeli communities.
"In response, our Air Force just struck Hamas terror targets in Gaza, including a military compound used to store rocket ammunition," Defense Minister Benny Gantz said.
Hamas said in a statement following the IDF strikes that Israel "will bear full responsibility for the consequences of the escalation in the Gaza Strip."
The terror group said the rocket fire was in response to Israel's targeting of the protesters on the border fence.
"Israel's deliberate attack on demonstrators in the eastern Gaza Strip and shooting of live ammunition is another crime in a long list being carried out against the Palestinian people."
First published: 14:46, 08.16.20