Horror in the sky - Manx family's Dubai nightmare
BBCA six-year-old boy on holiday in Dubai with his family, asked his parents whether missiles would hit the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, as they watched on from their hotel room.
The family from the Isle of Man, on their "bucket list" holiday in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), said they were horrified when they began seeing missiles and fighter jets in the skies above them.
The UAE has said three people have been killed by Iranian attacks since Saturday as drones and missiles have been fired across the region.
It was on Saturday evening when the mother, who wants to remain anonymous, said she was sitting on the hotel balcony with her son and heard "this almighty bang".
"There was a series of loud bangs during the evening and the jets going through the sky - it was just horrific," she said.
After a day of sightseeing, she said reaching their hotel that evening there were "very different sounds in the skies above us".
The family wish to remain anonymous amid fears of repercussions for anyone projecting a negative messages from inside the country.
The holidaymakers said they received no information from authorities but after the first sightings of missiles decided to remain inside the hotel complex.
The mother described how her son and other children were "listening for fighter jets and missiles, which is a horrific thing for anybody to have to witness their child do".
A "series of loud bangs" carried on through the night, she said, and notifications from authorities began coming through between 00:30 and 01:00 (local time).
On Sunday she said a jet flew past their hotel so close they "could see the signage", and her husband believed it was a British fighter jet "very close" and "clearly protecting the area here".
She said it had been "very hard to explain" to their son adding "this isn't a very nice situation and we're both just trying to be upbeat about it".
The family were due to fly home on 5 March, however they have received no confirmation whether the flight would depart or not and received further advice earlier that the airspace had been closed again.
The mother said a lot of what she was "reading online at the moment is contradictory".
On one hand she was being told "the airspace is slowly being opened and that people are leaving - and then on the other hand saying that things are escalating".
"It's just incredibly scary to not know when we might be able to get back home," she said.
Read more stories from the Isle of Man on the BBC, watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer and follow BBC Isle of Man on Facebook and X.
