By Dalia Burgana
KIRYAT MALACHI, Israel — For the past two weeks, the lives of residents of Kiryat Malachi have been disrupted by many air raid sirens (referred to as “tzeva adom” or “red color) and echoes of rockets exploding in the area.
A large part of the old, four-story apartment buildings in town are not rocket-proof and have no safe rooms, and many of the local bomb shelters are not fit for use. As a result, when sirens ring out, the Home Front Command guidelines call for all the residents of my building immediately to go to the inner stairwell on the second floor–which is where I happen to live.
I feel morally compelled to check to make sure that everyone comes down from the upper floors or up from the lower floors to the “safe floor.” I also feel that it is my duty to help them stay calm during these stressful episodes. (Note: Most of the residents in the author Dalia’s building are immigrants from Ethiopia who are not familiar with such experiences.)
Scenes of frightened, young children on their mother’s backs, after the sirens have awakened them from a deep sleep– the parents themselves in many cases fearful and unable to help their children– play out before our eyes day and night.
Parents talk about their children’s regressive behaviors, such as anxiety-induced bed wetting or clinging to their parents constantly. And they mistake any noise for a siren of a rocket coming. Of course, these are a “normal” reactions to an “abnormal” situation.
Daily routines have been thoroughly disrupted. There are no regular summer vacation activities for the children although the Jewish Agency and other groups have arranged to take school-age children out of this dangerous area. The adults are finding it hard to occupy the small children while also coping with their own sense of helplessness, their forced absence from work, and concern for their livelihoods when “the day after” finally arrives.
Traveling by car has become dangerous. People are afraid that the sirens will sound while they are on the road and they wonder how best to behave in such moments as pulling over and lying at the side of the road leaves us very vulnerable. Since I often travel for my consulting and social work jobs, I face this danger daily.
Kiryat Malachi residents are tense, alert, and try to manage their affairs in between air raid sirens. One day we had six sirens in an hour, and I didn’t even know if it was safe to go to the bathroom or not, let alone take a shower. All of us have children, grandchildren, and relatives in surrounding communities and our hearts are in those places too.
All of us are constantly glued to the news, anxious for every nugget of information about what is going on. Not only are the sirens sounding in town, but the radio station interrupts the program to give communities an extra warning.
It is precisely at times like these we have discovered the warmth of our community members and how their volunteer spirit shines through. Our teens and adults eagerly assist in every place there is a need to ensure that some semblance of normal life can go on even under threat. Teens from our youth council and youth organizations, with permission of their parents, have been instrumental in helping organize activities for children in safe places and to check on the elderly.
In spite of our difficulties here on the home front in Kiryat Malachi, our hearts reach out to the soldiers who have gone out to defend us and are risking their lives for Israel and its people.
Let us all pray for calm and that our soldiers will return home safely.
This was articulated very effectively by my three-year-old grandson, Guy, who asked me, “Grandma, when the war is over will there be a “green alert?”
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Burgana is a social worker residing in the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Malachi.