Life Under Missile Threat: God in the Bomb Shelter
Today is the Feast of Purim and day four of Operation Roaring Lion. I’ve had time to write, but truly don’t know what exactly to write. You can get information about what is really happening here from excellent news sources such as Ynetnews.com. An even better site is ynet.co.il, and use Google Translate to translate the Hebrew into English. The translation isn’t perfect but it serves the purpose.
There seems to be great significance regarding the timing of this war as well—but to be honest, I’ve been more focused on how to live faithfully day by day as events unfold.
Oh, and regarding the featured photo, I hope you like it. One of my friends brings her dog into the shelter whenever there is a siren. Today, she brought “Nisi” (meaning “my miracle”) with a little Purim hat, bringing lots of smiles to those of us in the shelter.
This post will be a bit long, as I’d like to share how we manage under wartime conditions, and then include excerpts from my diary and social media posts from the first day of the war. May these thoughts provide you with insight regarding the situation and how to pray for Israel, the US, and everyone else in the region.
The Practicalities of War for Israel’s Residents
Everyone in Israel is encouraged to download an app called “Home Front Command.” This provides us with accurate information about the current state of affairs for each resident of Israel, based on their location. We get a 5-15-minute warning on our app for an incoming attack from Iran. This provides plenty of time to wake up, grab a prepared emergency bag, and get to the shelter. Another app, called Tzofar, provides additional visualization, showing a map of the areas under threat. Most people have both apps on their phones.
For many Israelis, the shelter is in one of the following places: a specially designed room in their home; a dedicated shelter in the basement of the building they live in, accessed by a long flight of stairs; a nearby shelter in the neighborhood.
However, approximately one third of Israel’s residents – more than three million people – have no access to standard bomb shelters or protected spaces. This is a country‑wide problem that becomes a serious vulnerability every time sirens sound. The problem is the result of decades of planning decisions, bureaucracy, local priorities, cultural norms, and security realities that shifted faster than the systems meant to protect us. While many try to single out a culprit for this situation, the truth is far more complex—a shared failure that will require shared responsibility to fix.
Every time I go to the shelter, I’m reminded of my neighbors who cannot leave their home: One of them cannot walk up and down stairs at all. And so he and his wife sit there, and hope for the best. Their son and daughter-in-law often pass me in their panicked rush to the shelter while they remain home. This too is a hard reality for an estimated 600,000 of the nation’s disabled and elderly people (based on data from a 2024 report).
Mid-Day, Day One
I don’t feel much like writing… I’ve been back and forth from the bomb shelter 3–4 times so far today. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but I’ve lost count. The thought of this continuing through the whole night is exhausting.
The commentators in the news said that so far, the Iranians have not used any of their strategic ballistic missiles, though we know they have them. They think the strategy is to exhaust the people of Israel with inaccurate general missile strikes so that the general population will become careless in going to the shelters. Then, once they feel assured of maximum damage, they will fire strategic ballistic missiles for the highest possible body count.
Sadly, whether or not that is the strategy, it could still happen, even with inaccurate missiles. This morning the bomb shelter was crowded. This afternoon, still plenty of chairs inside. People who were standing did so by choice for the most part. The thing is, long after the sirens have stopped and the strong booms sounded, I feel like I keep hearing the echo of little booms in the background. In the last war, I learned that sometimes what I heard was real, and sometimes it wasn’t. Others heard the echoing booms too. We later learned that missiles were intercepted in unpopulated areas. They were far away, but we could hear them.
So much I don’t know…
Almost surreal
The whole atmosphere in the shelter felt surreal during that first attack this morning. The shelter is built underneath a synagogue not far from my house. Inside, where at least 200 people had crowded in, a long table had been set, just a few feet away from where I was sitting. It was covered with a white tablecloth and piled with food and beverages ranging from salad to beer. Mostly religious men sat at the table eating. As they finished eating, they burst into a boisterous song from the Psalms that strangely faded into silence after a minute or so. Women scurried in and began clearing the table and moving the leftovers into a nearby refrigerator.
Palpable fear
Next to me, a woman sat, bent half over, her mouth open in a silent scream, her chest heaving with repeated rapid breaths, eyes wide and unblinking. A man placed a bag in front of her and told her she could vomit into it. She did, and then continued to breathe faster and faster. I placed my hand gently on her back and spoke softly in Hebrew, encouraging her to breathe a bit slower. Could she sit up and look at me? I would breathe in and out with her. For a second, I thought she would do it, and then she sat straight up and threw herself back in the chair. I tried again. “You are not alone.” She shrugged and tapped on her phone. “I need an ambulance,” she whispered. I tried to explain why she couldn’t order one. She needed to connect to the WiFi in the shelter. But it was too much for her, and I didn’t understand her device to do it for her.
I was surprised that the only people who seemed to notice her were the man with the empty bag and me. Some seemed to be staring into nowhere, lost in their imaginations to the what-ifs that none of us could control. Others were glued to their phones, flipping through screens. All of us, whether drowning in panic or numb to the shock of being in a shelter again, waited together for the all clear. Something about sitting together under this shared threat felt familiar.
Now, as I think back to the times spent in the shelter, I’m reminded of the pandemic. It trained us to fear the very air we breathed. It seems to me that the powers that be—political and spiritual—want us to live in fear. Want us to be constantly afraid, always in readiness to run, to hide, to protect ourselves. Waiting for us to let down our shield and then get us on the run.
I see the fear on the faces of those sitting around me.
It’s wrong, it’s evil, and it is not from God. When I look at how God worked in the Old Testament wars, He told us when and where to hide. He warned us what to do, and He even urged us to surrender when defeat was a certainty—His painful discipline in response to national sin.
I feel like not much has changed today. For most of Israel—God has been replaced by “our army is strong.” We have forgotten our God. Perhaps, in some ways, He has hidden His face from us. But one thing I know, He is relentless in His quest to seek and to save the lost. He is the Hound of Heaven who truly terrifies and yet magnificently rescues and comforts those who call out to Him.
He really doesn’t ask for much when you stop to think about it. “Seek me and you shall find me, when you seek me with your whole heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
Prayer
Oh Lord, our hearts are so fickle. We want to seek You and find You, but we don’t know how. Our hearts are divided. We want to trust You and follow You, but we also want You to keep us in the loop on all Your plans. As though YOU need permission from US to do your strange work (Isaiah 28:22). Oh Heavenly Father, help us to truly yield to You, truly trust You, and to know that in these challenging times, You ARE.
You are our shield.
You are our helmet of Salvation.
You are the double-edged sword protecting us from the lies of the enemy.
You will not leave us defenseless, as long as our true defense—is You.
About the featured image:
Background: Photo of Haifa by Denis Vdovin on Unsplash
Left Inset Panel: Map represents all areas that had been under missile threat from Iran as of March 1 at 10:20 pm.
Top right inset panel: The table in the shelter, with a leftover plate of salad and a cup of beer.
Bottom right inset panel: Nisi, dressed up for Purim, on March 3 (in the shelter).
