Second Iran War: Part 5
Life, its quirks and absurdities during this war
Background
If you’re new to these pages, an explanation: alerts mean an 8-minute warning via radio or telephone app that a barrage of ballistic missiles has been sent toward us from Iran, and we should get to a fortified shelter within that 8-minute window. An attack—a very particular public siren—means we have 30 seconds to get to shelter. The 30 seconds is new—it used to be 5, then 15. But now Hezbollah has been pushed back to the far side of the Litani River in Lebanon, so we’ve gained some seconds in which to find shelter.
Once in a shelter for either a Hezbollah rocket attack or an Iranian ballistic missile attack we wait for ten minutes, the time needed for the Iron Dome and the new laser defense system to destroy incoming weapons in the air, and for the pieces of the destroyed weapons to fall to ground. At the end of that time we receive an all-clear on the radio and phone apps.
Most injuries occur from falling shrapnel. Some pieces from Iran are huge and as heavy as an automobile; other pieces are very small. Some have explosive heads. Army teams rush out to clean up all shrapnel after attacks, and within hours people whose homes have been damaged are notified how and where to file claims.
March 31, 2026: Passover eve
To be honest, I do not remember how many alerts (Iran) or attacks (Hezbollah) we had during the day. We’d had one around 3:00 AM—that seems to be the favorite time for the Iranians to send off a barrage of missiles. They do it deliberately then to irritate us. I hope that because they’re keeping crazy hours, their families are also distressed.
I was supposed to go to my good friends’ for the seder: a ten- to twelve-minute walk. Part of the way I could walk through my apartment complex, where there lots of public shelters. A small part can be navigated along a street that has several open garages dug into the hillside: concrete shells, okay places to wait out an attack, although not ideal. But the rest of the way to my friends’ home? Down maybe 100 steps through a narrow passage with no safe place to shelter.
We Orthodox Jews don’t use electricity, which means we can make use of things that are already turned on, but we don’t use power to control them. At the beginning of the war we were told by the nation’s official rabbinical council that it was permitted, under the extreme circumstance of warfare, to carry our phones, turned on and set to pick up alerts, but not to use them for anything else. If I do not get the 8-minute alert by the phone app I will not know to duck into a shelter until the last-second public siren sounds. My coat has deep pockets; I will take my phone.
Thirty seconds to get to safety while navigating 100 stone steps with no shelter along the way is simply unrealistic, especially for an 80-year-old woman who fell 16 months ago and spent the next 8 months recovering (healing and physical therapy). Half the afternoon I wondered, “Do I whip up my own Passover seder and stay home, or do I go to my friends?”
I went. I got there with neither an alert nor an attack.
We had a wonderful time, reading through the Haggadah, the retelling of the exodus from Egypt, asking and answering questions about the text and the story, laughing, singing songs, and eating. By the time we finished it was after 1:00 AM.
Then the question: do I stay overnight, close to their in-home safe room (in which a daughter, her husband and five children were sleeping) or do I walk home? I walked home. My friend and an adult son accompanied me up the steps and through the public streets to the entrance to my complex. No problems.
God is good.
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Friday, April 3rd
We’ve had one or more alerts and/or attacks every day, sometimes multiples. The other morning—if you call 3:30 AM morning—we returned from the communal shelter just long enough to hang up our coats when we had a second alert. Between the two alert warning times and the times between alert and all-clear, we lost about an hour. After the startle of being awakened from a sound sleep (if we were lucky), rushing outside and down the shelter steps, then back up and repeat, who could return to sleep? Not me, for sure.
Today was a quiet day...until ten minutes before the Sabbath, when we had three attacks in quick succession. Thirty minutes wasted, if being safe is “wasted.” Usually the last half-hour before Shabbat everyone is busy making sure that their home is ready, everything is done that makes a day of real rest possible. We always hope that we’ll have time to take a few deep, calming breaths before we light the candles that usher in the day of rest.
Lighting the candles must be done before sunset, when the Sabbath enters.
Here’s what, because of being interrupted ten minutes before candle-lighting time, I didn’t get done:
Turn on the light in my bedroom, where I have a Sabbath light (one where I can block the light without affecting the electricity). I did not get the power turned on, so I had to undress in the dark.
Fix the lights in the front of my apartment: I want the main light on, kitchen light off. The kitchen light was still on and the main light was still off when the first alert sounded, and they stayed that way.
Light my Sabbath candles. I was in the shelter during the time to light. There’s a loophole: if someone intends to do something but is prevented by things beyond their control, they still are counted as having done it. So I said to God, “Sorry, this counts as beyond my control, and I certainly meant to light.” But it is the first time in years I have not lit my candles. Last time was several years ago when I had pneumonia, had just been released from the hospital because it was Passover, and on medical advice was staying with friends and not alone. I was sound asleep at candle-lighting time, and my hostess did not want to wake me.
Today was quiet. Until ten minutes before the Sabbath was out, when we had two alerts, again with just enough time between them to get home. But most of us milled around outside the shelter, just in case.
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Monday, April 6th
The shelter was more crowded than I’d seen before. One child I’d never seen before was making a lot of noise, running around and creating disturbance and confusion. A woman I assumed was his mother tried in vain to get him to quiet down. Many obnoxious kids keep an eye out to see how their audience is responding, or they jerk their heads at the sound of their mother’s voice. This child’s frantic behavior was different, and I realized he was autistic.
It is hard enough for normal kids to function in this crazy world of alerts and attacks and no school, no clubs, no outings. What is it like for a child who cannot understand what is going on? How difficult for the child’s family!
And with the crowd in the shelter that night, and the child creating chaos, what did my little dog Dolly do?
She sat quietly on my lap. She has gotten used to the shelter. Former strangers have become familiar, and she seems to understand this is a unique situation. She no longer is bothered by the two little dogs that run around the shelter freely.
Even when we are outside walking she no longer acts aggressively when we meet other dogs. Today we met our nemeses (is that the plural of nemesis?), four dogs owned and walked by a former neighbor. During the two years I lived next door, my elderly dog Albert, whom I’d brought from the USA, was still alive. One of their dogs in particular hated Albert, and the rest of her pack picked that up. Even though Albert has been gone for four years and all four of my neighbor’s dogs have passed and been replaced, their hatred of me has been passed down. When I got Dolly last May, they transferred their dislike to her. She reciprocated. It got very loud. Five snarling, growling dogs is frightening. And embarrassing for the owners.
As always when that neighbor and I meet on a path, one of us takes our dog(s) up the nearest front walk and away from the other. Today, Dolly barely growled at them as they passed, and their barking was very subdued. Being taken to the shelters and exposed to crowds of other people and dogs has been good socialization for those dogs too. All five have calmed down when confronted by the other. A silver lining to this cloud that hangs over us.
Cease-Fire
The ceasefire we have now is with Iran. Hezbollah has not only continued to throw rockets at it, it has stepped up the attacks. The number 6,400 rockets1 since April first was mentioned a few days ago. The upside is that these rockets are much smaller than the ballistic missiles fired at us by Iran. The hallway of my house has been deemed by the civil defense officers as an adequate safe space for them, and because Israel has removed most Hezbollah sympathizers north beyond the Litani River, about 100 km from the border, we now have a full half-minute from the start of the alarm to the arrival of the rockets.
My town seems to have fewer attacks than surrounding locales. This has been explained in several ways: we don’t have soldiers billeted in town, the town is considered very unimportant, and my favorite: we have some very holy people whose prayers and godly acts protect us.
For the first day or two of the ceasefire I felt like a rubber band stretched to the limit, and one side suddenly released. When this happens, the rubber band snaps back and then flutters wildly. The tension is gone, but it takes time for the rubber to get back to normal. The first night, my eyes fluttered nonstop, a sign (I was told by a doctor years ago) of releasing tension. Lovely to know, but the fluttering made it hard to sleep.
Even with the ceasefire, I awaken around 2:45 and can’t go back to sleep until around 4:00—because for weeks we’ve been awakened between those hours by either alerts or attacks, or sometimes both. And we are still hearing booms.
I live in the “empty area” between Nahariya, Safed, Karmiel and the red border line. Sound carries easily over water, so we hear the booms from the Iron Dom when Haifa is attacked. Between the active port and the oil refinery on Haifa bay, the coastline there is a very frequent target.
Back to Normal?
My gas cooktop, old when someone gave it to me 7 years ago, finally quit just before Passover. (Luckily I also have a single-burner electric hotplate.) My new cooktop was delivered last Wednesday. But unlike in the USA, where appliances are delivered by installation technicians, here we need to make an appointment for a technician to install the item. Without a licensed installer’s signature the warranty is void.
The installer called for instructions on how to reach my apartment. Just as I left the house to go down to the street to get him, we had an attack. I directed him to a migonit, a small, portable shelter. We waited out the ten minutes it takes for shrapnel to reach the ground. Then I went down to the street and brought him up.
While the gas technician was here, the Amazon courier delivered a package I’d ordered in late February. I guess if Amazon has resumed delivery, normal has returned.
In case you’re wondering why, after 2.5 years of war, Hezbollah can still send 6,400 rockets over the border, Israeli information before this war was that Hezbollah had 150,000 rockets waiting for us. Thanks go to Iran, which funds Hezbollah and provides weapons.