Letter from Israel: Reflections of a year living under the threat of missiles By Aron Heller | Freelance, Friday, 22 Nov 2024

Published in The Canadian Jewish News.

With all the trauma and turmoil that has engulfed this country after more than a year of war, it seems almost trivial to describe the plight of daily life in central Israel under the spectre of missile attacks.

After all, we are not in the thick of battle like the soldiers or on the front line like the border communities. The attacks themselves haven’t been daily, we’ve suffered few casualties and damage, and we haven’t had to evacuate our homes like so many of our fellow citizens in both the north and the south. Still, the ominous threat and frequent air raid sirens warn us of the gathering cloud of a broader war that hangs over us like an albatross.

It’s a constant concern, and constant conversation, that dictates daily decisions about where to go, when and with whom. The familiar pitch of a wailing siren warning of incoming fire can be heard in the revving of a motorcycle engine or even a split second of a song on the radio. It’s enough to trigger a Pavlovian reaction to seek safety before realizing that nothing has happened—at least this time.

Therefore, many people choose to stay close to home. Weekend plans often involve weighing the odds of visiting friends you haven’t seen in months versus the risk of an attack catching you vulnerable on a highway with nowhere to hide. Some people I know frequently drill themselves and their children about what to do in each scenario. Others do their best to look away, ignoring instructions and driving through sirens without pause.

What began as post-Oct. 7, 2023, projectiles from Gaza have since expanded to strikes from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Iran as well. These days when the sirens wail, our curiosity has expanded from merely wondering where the missiles landed to where they came from.

As it is, the country has already essentially shrunk in size. Traveling to the north is out of the question because of Hezbollah missiles and drones and the south is still iffy because of Hamas rockets. East, to the West Bank, has always been a problem. And, because of the Houthi aggression, even the typically tranquil tourist destination of Eilat at Israel’s most southern point is no longer immune. That leaves west to the Mediterranean beach and beyond as the only potential refuge. But with nearly all foreign airlines cancelling their flights to and from Israel amid these tensions, those options are also limited and uncertain.

It all adds up to a sensation of siege where nowhere seems safe besides your home and its fortified safe room. Even there you can hear distant booms of missile explosions, or more often the mid-air interceptions of Israel’s impressive air defense systems. Sometimes it’s strong enough to rattle the windows.

Still, life must go on and you can’t live in fear. So, you stick as best as you can to routines and embrace the new normal. The recent spike in frequency has found my family and I scurrying for cover in scenarios similar to a bizarre Dr. Seuss-like verse.

The sirens have caught us …

In school, and at the pool,

On a jog, and out with the dog.

At the gym, when it was dim,

At the park, when it was dark.

On a hike, and on a bike,

In the shower, at any hour.

All alone, or on the phone,

In the car, near or far.

As someone who has lived through the full range of the Israeli experience, I tend to take all this lightly. I figure this is just the latest, albeit most extreme, form of coping with our perpetual existential angst in the Holy Land.

But the hardest part is seeing how it affects my children. That’s what truly gives me pause.

Here too I seek the perspective that they don’t nearly have it as bad as their older cousins who are of military age, not to mention others with far more direct and painful links to this ongoing tragedy.

My oldest daughter, who is 12, has built up a steely resolve. But she too has had her scares. Once, while waiting for a bus after school, she had no choice but to lie face down in the dirt as sirens wailed. She then heard a loud explosion and picked up her head to see smoke billowing from an impact in the distance.

My middle daughter, who is nine, is keenly attuned to all that surrounds us. A classmate of hers was abducted to Gaza on Oct. 7 and spent 50 days in captivity before he was released in a swap. Today, she remains too wary of missiles to bike to school alone. Last week, she was spooked when she was late getting to a shelter at scouts and witnessed an Iron Dome interception overhead.

Even my youngest daughter, who is five, has not been spared. She points out proudly that her bedroom doubles as the fortified safe room, so sometimes she doesn’t even wake up for overnight sirens. But the shelter at her kindergarten has gotten its fair share of use. Mimicking siren sounds and explosions has become a common form of play. Just the other day I was picking her up around the same time missile attacks had occurred the previous two days and one of her classmates, noting the nearing sunset, casually asked: “Why hasn’t there been a siren yet?”

It’s this reality, and the uncertainty of anything else yet to come, that makes one wonder what the future holds for their generation.

Unfortunately, our neighbors and our current leadership offer little in the way of hope. That the rest of the world’s politics has also gone wacky and North American Jews can no longer rely on their once carefree existence offers no consolation either. It only complicates the rationale for those Israelis entertaining the prospect of a life elsewhere.

Ultimately, one can only hope that daily life here settles into some form of sustainable normalcy. No one around here dares to pontificate about peace anymore. It would be quite enough just to be able to look up at the sky with wonder, rather than dread.