One year after Operation "With the Lion," when Israel and the United States struck targets in Iran and Iran replied with ballistic missile fire at Israel, the home front is still dealing with major damage. The 12-day operation caused heavier harm than the longer "Lion's Roar" campaign, and many buildings still need repair, long-term restoration, or demolition and reconstruction. Tax Authority data supplied to Calcalist show that the state has already spent vast sums on direct compensation and substitute rent, but the totals are still not final and payments will continue for years.
So far, 39,715 claims have been filed with the compensation fund for structural damage, including about 2,800 classified as long-term rehabilitation cases. Tel Aviv leads with 10,160 claims, followed by Ramat Gan with 6,654, Rehovot with 3,969, Bat Yam with 3,254, and Petah Tikva with 3,055. In Tel Aviv, 336 apartments currently receive property-tax relief because they are unfit for habitation, compared with 193 after "Lion's Roar." In 3,329 cases, substitute rent totaling 187.2 million shekels has been paid, and compensation for direct damage, mostly to apartment contents, has reached 3.7 billion shekels.
Tel Aviv suffered the worst damage. The city has declared 56 buildings dangerous, 24 of them still under that status. Two heritage buildings on Pinsker Street, numbers 4 and 6, were marked for demolition, and applications have already been filed for new permits. The most complex repair cases are the Da Vinci tower in Tel Aviv and the Elite tower in Ramat Gan. Da Vinci, occupied only about a year and a half before the strike, requires replacement of its expensive curtain walls, a task described as unprecedented in Israel and possibly worldwide. Re-occupancy is now expected only in 2028, and the combined repair cost for Da Vinci and Elite is estimated at about 1 billion shekels, or roughly 500 million per tower.
Ramat Gan also saw five buildings on Terza Street ordered demolished, and all five have now been razed, with new plans under review. Six other buildings received orders to fix blast damage. The Elite tower project is being managed by Efrati Medpis, whose owner, Yoni Efrati, said work is already underway with Dalloya Group and in full coordination with the Tax Authority. He said the restoration should take about two years and that the main challenge is replacing the tower's aluminum exterior. He added that this is "not a project you learn to do in engineering school" and hopes it will be a one-off.
Bat Yam remains the city with the largest number of displaced households, with 481 families still out of their homes. After the strikes, 52 buildings were declared dangerous, three were later cleared after repairs, and 11 were designated for demolition, two of them already torn down by the municipality. Most of the badly damaged structures are expected to be handled through demolition and rebuilding, once the state formally designates the sites as wreckage areas. In Petah Tikva, recovery is more advanced, with 160 families still in temporary housing after direct hits on two inner towers in the Asirei Tzion complex; officials expect that work to finish within about six months. In Beersheba, where four missile impact sites damaged 111 buildings and seven were declared dangerous, most residents are expected to return by the end of 2026, though 95 people are still displaced, 59 of whom should return within about two weeks and the rest in roughly three years.
