Nigeria, Aug. 22 -- Shortly before sunrise on 19 June 2025, residents of Beersheba, a southern Israeli city, were woken by blaring sirens and missile alerts on their phones. The warnings gave them only minutes to take cover.

For Blessing Eje, a Nigerian postgraduate student at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, those alarms had become an unwelcome part of life in Israel. But that morning, the danger drew closer than ever.

"The first missile fell on Soroka Medical Centre, just opposite our campus," she recalled. "The building shook so badly. Parts of my school were affected. We were only separated from the hospital by a two-lane road."

The following day, another blast rocked Beersheba, a city of about 600,000. It was the second strike ...