The siren began sounding as Roberto Sciunnach was hauling his second mattress down the concrete steps to the shelter, off the side of a cavernous parking lot and two stories below north Tel Aviv’s spacious Basel Square.
Above ground on this temperate Saturday evening, the usually bustling plaza was close to empty, its cafes shuttered per government regulation. When Sciunnach got down the steps — after calling to his wife that he was close, he’d make it in time — the shelter was nearly empty as well, though that was soon to change.
Within minutes, the rooms were bustling, as a swarm of adults, children, dogs, strollers, bags, mats and mattresses filled the space. It wasn’t yet 7:30 p.m., but families with young kids knew that now was the time to settle in for the night.
After weeks of anticipation, the war with Iran had finally begun, the second in eight months, plunging the country into uncertainty as sirens sounded across Tel Aviv and Israel, warning of incoming Iranian ballistic missiles and drones.
The denizens of this shelter came here for safety. But what they said they found was the impromptu community created when dozens of Israelis are packed together underground, waiting out a war. The shelter’s occupants came from different countries, brought different kinds of food with them and had different opinions about the war, but they were all united in the hope for a quiet night.
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“We have a full bag of games, and we’re making it as normal as possible so the kids don’t feel it,” said Sciunnach, father to a two-year-old boy and a 6-month-old baby girl, pointing to a set of MagnaTiles sprawled across a mat. “For my son, this is just a game, a party. If you ask him what he’s doing there, he’s sure it’s a pajama party.”
Sciunnach and his family spent the June war in their building’s shelter, but this felt both more secure and more convenient, with no need to run up and down the stairs to their apartment every time a siren sounded. They’re at the shelter with another young family from their building, prepared to hole up for the night, if not longer.
“It was tough as a family with two kids, a 6-month old baby. It wasn’t easy to always go up and back,” he said. “We decided to come to this shelter in Basel Square because even if we have a safe room in the building, it’s much safer to be two floors down, and we put safety first.”
People gather at the bomb shelter in Tel Aviv’s Basel Square during a siren on February 28, 2026. (Ben Sales/Times of Israel)
Feet away, a group of women sat in a line of lawn chairs set against the concrete wall, as if on a beach boardwalk. Two of them, Nelly and Elyane, who declined to give their last names, are both from Belgium but didn’t know each other before the last Iran war, explaining repeatedly that they were from different towns.
“I met this wonderful neighbor in June,” Nelly said, pointing to Elyane. Then, they exclaimed in unison: “Now we meet again!”
That isn’t the only reason they’re having an easier time now.
“In June, it was extremely hot. It was difficult to breathe,” Nelly said. “And we know already. It’s not the first time, so we’re more familiar” with the experience.
She isn’t opposed to the war, she explained. She hopes this time it topples the Iranian regime so Israel won’t need to fight another round in a matter of months.
“I was more anxious before it started, and now that it started, I’m less anxious,” she said. “I’m starting to feel tired, but less anxious.”
‘You make faces and, in general, laugh at the situation’
Anxiety and fatigue seemed common across the shelter. Another shared feeling: boredom. A group of twentysomethings, sitting on the ground, hung out in near silence and said apologetically that they were too tired to give an interview.
Eden, age 8, didn’t have a ball below ground, but showed off a game he and his sister invented: It involved flipping a plastic Coke bottle half-filled with water in the air, over and over, and getting it to land upright. Several attempts on Saturday evening, meant as a demonstration, were unsuccessful, but they promised they had done it earlier.
Later, he seemed happier. He pulled a scooter out of a corner of the shelter and was making a loop between gaps in the wall.
One man set up a huge pop-up tent in a corner of the bomb shelter at Basel Square in Tel Aviv on February 28, 2026. (Ben Sales/Times of Israel)
Their father, Amir, who also didn’t give a last name, sat with the family on collapsible chairs in front of an enormous pop-up tent whose top grazed the shelter’s air duct. They had spent one night here in June, after a previous shelter flooded with groundwater. This time, he said, he learned his lesson and came better equipped.
“It’s intense, crowded,” he said. But he knows people here, he added: “It’s the neighborhood, people from the neighborhood.”
One pair of newcomers — a young couple that, since June, has moved in together — arrived at this shelter after spending the day walking around Tel Aviv. Every time there was a siren, said one of them, named Harel Stavi, they would find a nearby shelter and pop in.
They were in this one earlier, where Stavi said he managed to order jachnun, a Yemeni Jewish pastry traditionally eaten on the weekend, on the popular delivery app Wolt. A siren sounded as the delivery guy got there, and he came downstairs for safety. Once the shelter cleared out, Stavi said, they found each other and he got his food.
Later, the couple played broken telephone with some kids on a mat nearby.
“We didn’t know anyone,” he said of his fellow shelter-dwellers. “You make faces and, in general, laugh at the situation.”
Before a siren sounded at around 7:30 p.m on February 28, 2026, the large shelter at Basel Square was almost empty. (Ben Sales/Times of Israel)
By 8:30 p.m., the shelter was nearly empty again. A group of children was drawing pictures with a mom near where Stavi had been. One room over, Schiunnach fed his kids scrambled eggs, bell peppers and cheese with another family. The mattresses were still propped up against the wall.
One mom told her 6-year-old that she was stepping outside for a smoke and would be right back. They were in for a long night.
Minutes later, Amir, owner of the huge tent, called out to a family on mattresses next door that he too was going to traipse up the steps.
“Bye for now,” he yelled. “Can I bring you anything?”