TEL AVIV — As the sounds of gunfire drew nearer, Saher Esleih crouched in a corner and cradled her 4-year-old son, Tawfiq. 

“I was holding him, and he was shivering and scared,” she told NBC News. “He kept asking me, ‘When will they finish?’” 

Suddenly, she said, the room plunged into darkness and debris began to fall from the ceiling. Esleih began calling out to other relatives hiding in the room, each in turn answering that they were safe.

It was only then that she realized…