Sen. Cory Booker and Rep. Dan Goldman are back in the U.S. after sheltering in place as violence erupted in Israel on Saturday. Flight disruptions have left other U.S. citizens unable to get home.
Hamas’ attack on Israel over the weekend caught many people off guard — including two American lawmakers who were visiting the country when the violence broke out.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., traveled to Israel separately and were in different cities on Saturday, but statements from their offices suggest they shared a similar experience. Both sheltered in place in their hotels and were able to return to the U.S. the next day.
Goldman had traveled to Tel Aviv with his wife and three children for a family bar mitzvah. He told TODAY that they were woken up around 6:30 a.m. by sirens and scrambled to seek shelter in a stairwell, an experience they repeated several times throughout the day as the barrage of rockets continued.
« Our experience was traumatic, but of course it is nothing compared to so many Israelis down in the south, just massacred with barbarism that we have not seen, » he added.
Goldman said he was briefed on how Israel’s Iron Dome works during a visit with a congressional delegation in August, but did not expect to experience it for himself. He said what’s most important in this moment — « both in Congress and around this country » — is standing with Israel against what he described as « barbaric terrorism.
