By Avigayil Kadesh

In many parts of Israel, and particularly the Negev communities that border the Gaza Strip, it’s been impossible to get through a single day without several mad dashes to the bomb shelter. Between July 8 and July 28, 2014, more than 2,500 rockets were fired from Gaza at Israeli civilians.

Depending on where they live, people have 15 to 90 seconds to get to shelter after hearing the siren. Unfortunately, this has led to many injuries among Israelis hurrying to a safe place. 

An 81-year-old man sustained serious head injuries in a fall on his way to a bomb shelter in Beersheva, and a Haifa woman suffered a heart attack in her run for cover. One teenage girl in Sderot was in the shower when she heard the siren, wrapped herself in a towel and ran, but slipped and broke her ankle. Others were hurt on their way to shelter in Petah Tikva, Even Yehuda and elsewhere. 

And those are just the physical injuries. The psychological toll is overwhelming, according to counselors from the Israel Trauma Coalition (ITC). 

Zurit Yarchi, the crisis response team coordinator at the ITC resilience center in Eshkol, the district getting the most missile fire, told the ITC: "Crisis response teams are at the center of the community, but even with years of experience I am anxious when I get the message in the middle of the night or morning that there has been an infiltration [from Gaza into Israel through a tunnel]. We can't sleep, constantly thinking when it's going to happen, and where. … We live in the shadow of war and we hear what is going on in Gaza. We got used to missiles and mortar shells….. But now the tunnels created a new fear that is horrific. I have five children at home; three sleep in the shelter, and I move the other two in when needed." 

“Aussie Dave” of the Israelly Cool blog reported on the night of July 9 that he had just taken his ill wife to the emergency room when a Code Red alert went off. They were safe where they were, but they were petrified to think of their three youngsters at home being looked after by a caregiver. After some frantic phone calls, they found out that the panicked caregiver had been unable to wake the younger kids and so she only brought the eight-year-old to the safe room.

“Thankfully, a rocket did not land in the vicinity of our house,” he wrote. “I mention this story because when you read the news – especially if you live overseas – you might not really understand what we are going through. … And there are plenty of others who have their own stories to tell.” 

Making music and laughter 

Comedy, music and sports in the face of troubles are tried-and-true remedies for lightening the mood, and Israelis are accomplishing this in many and varied ways.

Beit Shemesh resident Sara Eisen started a Facebook page, "Bomb Shelter Selfies," where beleaguered Israelis can post self-taken photos of themselves. These snapshots even have a new name, “shelties,” and Israelis are trying to outdo one another with the funniest and most embarrassing photos. 

Journalist Daniella Ashkenazy’s Chelm on the Med blog, which reports on humorous news items out of Israel, noted that two kibbutzim in the western Negev -- one founded by Argentinean Jews, and the other by Brazilian Jews – “crammed into bomb shelters and remained glued to the tube throughout the world soccer championship, the Mondial” final game on July 13, in which the German team beat the Argentinean team. 

Seems they were not the only Israelis mesmerized by the match despite the bombs overhead. “Nationwide television ratings show the World Cup Championship placed second in popularity to non-stop news programs,” she wrote. 

Comedians and magicians – Israeli and American -- are traveling around to bomb shelters to keep agitated Israelis entertained, and many amateur and professional musicians have been giving bomb-shelter concerts. An organization called Tarbut L’Yisrael (Culture for Israel) is solving two problems at once by arranging bomb-shelter concerts by independent musicians unable to get gigs because of the conflict. 

Sara Merson, an American living in Israel, recorded her version of reggae musician Matisyahu’s peace anthem, One Day, from a bomb shelter in Ashdod, overlaid with video images of rockets exploding in Ashdod and real-time images of her boyfriend’s family racing downstairs to the bomb shelter.

The chorus lyrics read: “All my life I’ve been waiting for/I’ve been praying for/For the people to say/That we don’t wanna fight no more/There will be no more wars/And our children will play/One day.”