(Istanbul=Yonhap News) Correspondent Kim Dong-ho:"I feel like I have a trauma that makes my mouth go dry and makes me sensitive to 'thud' sounds."
Cho Mi-sook, president of the Korean Association in Iran who has lived in Iran for 30 years, said in a phone call with Yonhap News Agency on the 14th (local time) that the large-scale bombing by Israel the previous morning was"so terrifying that it's hard to express."
Chairman Cho, who lives in an eight-story apartment in the Iranian capital Tehran, said that immediately after the Israeli airstrikes began, he went out of the building in fear and wandered the streets, where he saw an ambulance.
Chairman Cho said,"I asked my neighbors and they said that it was two nuclear scientists who were attacked just 100 meters away from my house." The day before, leading Iranian nuclear scientists Hamad Tehranchi and Fereydoun Abbasi were killed in a targeted airstrike by the Israeli military.
Chairman Cho said,"My husband and sister-in-law, both Iranians, had previously experienced the Iran-Iraq War and were more resolute than me, but they had a really hard time yesterday," adding,"This is the first time in my life that I have experienced something like this."
Koreans in Israel also had to stay up all night due to Iran's retaliatory airstrikes on Israeli soil that continued from the previous night until the early morning of that day.
Won Ui-seop, a student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, said,"This is the third time I have experienced an Iranian airstrike, but yesterday I was surprised by the loud noise of the interception."
Mr. Won, who lives in the West Bank, about 20km south of Jerusalem, described the situation at the time, saying,"There were a lot of jets and missiles flying over my house, probably because there was an Israeli air route right next to my house."
Mr. Won said he had heard that debris from an interception fell near Hebron in the West Bank, injuring three children."The Israeli government has issued instructions to live near bunkers, and it looks like we'll have to do that for the time being," he said.
He also lamented that the recent threat from Iran to Israel is different from before, saying,"There is no day when Israel can be quiet."
The Korean embassies in Iran and Israel are sharing real-time local situations and providing safety guidelines through their websites and messenger notices.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a special travel advisory for parts of Iran and Israel as of today. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated,"We ask our citizens to cancel or postpone their trips to Israel and Iran, and we ask our citizens currently in these two countries to move to safe areas unless they have urgent business."
