Here we go again. Even after 55 years in Israel, and even though it seems we’ve had more war than peace, I am always surprised when it happens. It seems we have just come out of one war, and another one begins. This weekend, we’re entering the second week of this undeclared war against Iran. Yes, there were rumblings, threats, warnings whispered and shouted. Yet, on that Saturday morning when the sirens sounded, I was caught off guard. I had been packing up a picnic lunch for the family. We were going to drive down south to see the blooming fields of red anemones. Instead of my picnic basket, I had to grab my go-bag and run to the shelter.


Our 5-star shelter: parquet floors and fluorescent lighting – photo: Nili B

Well, it isn’t actually an official shelter, but it’s the next best thing, the safest option we have at the moment. In fact, the place we run to is a boxing gym in the basement of the building next door. There is nothing else we can get to in time. In the past, we huddled inside our apartments or stood in the stairwell. But that was before ballistic missiles and cluster bombs. This is not a war for standing in the stairwell. This is a war where taking cover underground or in a reinforced concrete safe room can mean the difference between life and death.

There are some pluses to taking shelter in a boxing gym. For one thing, it’s really clean. There’s a parquet floor, and the place is bright, clean and shiny. And there are luxuries you won’t find in a municipal shelter, like Wi-Fi, chairs and mats to sit on, plumbing, and lots of space. That’s important because people come from all over the neighborhood when the sirens sound. The closest public shelter is a 6-minute walk away and is always overcrowded. There are some tiny ‘pop-up’ shelters around the neighborhood – better than nothing, but also very crowded. The pop-up shelters are SRO, where the S stands for sardine.  So I am very thankful for our underground accommodations.

Air-raid-bnb

Just as with municipal shelters, our basement becomes an underground bnb at night. Lots of people feel safer sleeping underground, myself included. There are families with small children and people like me, who have don’t want to sprint here in the middle of the night. In my case, I’ve got a bit of a trek to get down here: walk – quickly – down 9 flights of stairs, then outside, cross a courtyard, enter the next building, then another 3 flights of steps… I can do it in 2.5 minutes, though I am always thankful when we have an early alert so that I can take my time and arrive without wheezing. I have staked out my own little corner of the basement. I call it my air-raid-bnb. I am finally getting some use out of the foam exercise mat I bought 25 years ago and used maybe 2 or 3 times. And I have a comfy flannel-lined sleeping bag to cuddle in. And even though there are fluorescent lights overhead and people coming and going, I actually sleep very well down here. Not long, usually no more than 4 or 5 hours a night – but at least I sleep. So, yes I am thankful to have this place.


Air-Raid-bnb – improvised accommodations in shelters around town. photo collage: Nili B

Shelter etiquette

Our building complex has 2 gyms and two supermarkets, and a few other shops. So, during the day and evenings, the shelter is full of people who have come to shop or work out at the gym. You’ll see elderly people with walkers and canes, young people, many of them heavily tattooed, in workout clothes, families, and dogs, oh so many dogs. The guy from the vegetable stand across the street comes in carrying a carton of strawberries and offers them around.


Strawberries in the Shelter – photo: Nili B

Sounds chaotic but incredibly, it is actually an oasis of calm. People file in quietly, find a seat or sit on the floor, and talk quietly amongst themselves.  There is an unwritten rule that everyone seems to know – no talk of politics in the shelter. This is just one of the ways in which our behavior in the shelter is absolutely opposite to the way we behave in peacetime (not that we’ve had too much of that lately…) The quiet is uncanny. And it’s not stunned silence due to fear. It really feels like a sort of calm. We are in the safest place we can find, and we know that our air defense systems and our amazing air force pilots are doing their best to keep us safe. We sit and we wait for the all-clear.

I’m in constant awe of people’s resilience – families with tiny children, elderly people who probably ache all over and have just somehow come down those 3 flights of stairs, newcomers who can’t understand the news… all gather calmly when sirens go off. Anyone who’s been here on a visit would be surprised to see us – usually noisy Israelis – filing quietly into our safe spaces, sitting quietly, respecting each other’s space. The same people who might push and shove on crowded buses on ordinary days, are incredibly controlled and polite during these extraordinary and very stressful days.


Our neighbor, Ofer Shalchin, leads a sing-along in the shelter – photo: Nili B

And when we do make noise, it’s to sing! Yes, we had a sing-along in the shelter yesterday. Ofer Shalchin, one of the neighbors, gets us singing. One day he brought his harmonica. Yesterday he brought his accordion and we sang Israeli folk songs and some Beatles classics. A perfect combination.

I‘ve started a little English club for the kids in the shelter. One little boy now runs ahead of his parents into the shelter whenever the alarm goes and is standing there clutching the bag with the English materials, waiting for me as I enter. We play, naming animals, colors,  and feelings – happy, sad, angry, scared… A bit of learning, a bit of therapy, a bit of fun. It helps pass the time till the all-clear.

Thankfully, there are fewer missiles now than a week ago when this started, and far fewer than the barrages we endured in June, but sirens still blare, pieces of intercepted missiles fall from the sky.

As missiles fly overhead, I am filled with dread – not for myself, but for the people of Iran and Lebanon who do not have the luxury of underground shelters, safe rooms and advanced air defense systems. I believe that most of these people want peace, as do most Israelis. I pray for everyone’s safety. I pray this will be over soon. I am not sad to see the end of the tyranny in Iran under the Islamic Republic, nor will I be sad to see the end of Hezbollah. But I do not believe that war can bring an end to entrenched extremist ideologies. Sadly, the real victims are the citizens of the countries being bombed.

Meanwhile, everyone in Israel schlepps up and down, in and out of shelters and safe rooms. Sitting quietly, waiting, living from siren to siren. I know I’ve said it a hundred times before, but resilience really is our strong point here.  We are here and we are strong. We are waiting for the all-clear. Yet again.

Nili Bresler is a member of Israel’s pro-democracy movement and a volunteer with NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief. Nili is a business communications coach with experience in management at multinational technology companies. Prior to her career in high-tech, Nili was a news correspondent for the AP. Nili holds a degree in International Relations from NYU. She made aliya in 1970 and lives in Ramat Gan.