{"id":315362,"date":"2026-02-28T22:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T22:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/315362\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T22:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T22:13:09","slug":"we-meet-again-inside-the-pajama-party-at-a-north-tel-aviv-bomb-shelter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/315362\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We meet again’: Inside the ‘pajama party’ at a north Tel Aviv bomb shelter"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s spacious Basel Square.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 after calling to his wife that he was close, he\u2019d make it in time \u2014 the shelter was nearly empty as well, though that was soon to change.<\/p>\n

Within minutes, the rooms were bustling, as a swarm of adults, children, dogs, strollers, bags, mats and mattresses filled the space. It wasn\u2019t yet 7:30 p.m., but families with young kids knew that now was the time to settle in for the night.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe have a full bag of games, and we\u2019re making it as normal as possible so the kids don\u2019t feel it,\u201d 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. \u201cFor my son, this is just a game, a party. If you ask him what he\u2019s doing there, he\u2019s sure it\u2019s a pajama party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sciunnach and his family spent the June war in their building\u2019s 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\u2019re at the shelter with another young family from their building, prepared to hole up for the night, if not longer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was tough as a family with two kids, a 6-month old baby. It wasn\u2019t easy to always go up and back,\u201d he said. \u201cWe decided to come to this shelter in Basel Square because even if we have a safe room in the building, it\u2019s much safer to be two floors down, and we put safety first.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tPeople gather at the bomb shelter in Tel Aviv\u2019s Basel Square during a siren on February 28, 2026. (Ben Sales\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n

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\u2019t know each other before the last Iran war, explaining repeatedly that they were from different towns.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met this wonderful neighbor in June,\u201d Nelly said, pointing to Elyane. Then, they exclaimed in unison: \u201cNow we meet again!\u201d<\/p>\n

That isn\u2019t the only reason they\u2019re having an easier time now.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn June, it was extremely hot. It was difficult to breathe,\u201d Nelly said. \u201cAnd we know already. It\u2019s not the first time, so we\u2019re more familiar\u201d with the experience.<\/p>\n

She isn\u2019t opposed to the war, she explained. She hopes this time it topples the Iranian regime so Israel won\u2019t need to fight another round in a matter of months.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was more anxious before it started, and now that it started, I\u2019m less anxious,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m starting to feel tired, but less anxious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018You make faces and, in general, laugh at the situation\u2019<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Eden, age 8, didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tOne 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)<\/p>\n

Their father, Amir, who also didn\u2019t give a last name, sat with the family on collapsible chairs in front of an enormous pop-up tent whose top grazed the shelter\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s intense, crowded,\u201d he said. But he knows people here, he added: \u201cIt\u2019s the neighborhood, people from the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

One pair of newcomers \u2014 a young couple that, since June, has moved in together \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Later, the couple played broken telephone with some kids on a mat nearby.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know anyone,\u201d he said of his fellow shelter-dwellers. \u201cYou make faces and, in general, laugh at the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tBefore 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)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cBye for now,\u201d he yelled. \u201cCan I bring you anything?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The siren began sounding as Roberto Sciunnach was hauling his second mattress down the concrete steps to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-315362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}