STEPH GRABER, at front, sits in a public shelter in Jaffa, Israel, March 1, 2026. (credit: DEBORAH DANAN\/JTA)<\/p>\n
Graber said she had been sheltering elsewhere but had \u201cFOMO\u201d about not being with her friends, so she switched over in the brief lull between sirens.<\/p>\n
Martine Berkowitz, a friend of Graber\u2019s, also said the community around her was what made the disruption feel manageable. Sirens kept interrupting even basic tasks, she said, including her attempt to take a shower, which she tried five times.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy friends live on my corner, so I\u2019m doing great. We\u2019re all together all the time,\u201d she said. During the last Iran flare-up in June, she didn\u2019t have that kind of built-in circle nearby, she said. \u201cBeing alone then was really rough.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mood wasn\u2019t confined to Jaffa. Across the country, similar scenes played out in shelters and spread on social media, including one from Nachlaot in Jerusalem of people singing \u201cFor the Jews There was Light and Joy,\u201d a Purim song marking the story\u2019s turn after Haman\u2019s plot to kill the Jews was thwarted. The parallel to the current moment, as the Jews once again sought to topple a Persian rule who had called for their death, was not lost on anyone.<\/p>\n
In a sprawling underground parking lot turned shelter at Dizengoff Center in central Tel Aviv, Shabbat prayers gave way to dancing and songs of \u201cDon\u2019t Be Afraid, Oh Israel\u201d and \u201cAm Yisrael Chai.\u201d Saul Sadka, who was there, posted a video of the revelers, captioning it \u201cjoy and stoicism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sadka later said he was struck by the \u201csense of solidarity,\u201d and noted that it was Shabbat Zachor, when Jews read the passage about Amalek, a nemesis that they are commanded never to forget. \u201cPeople seem willing to suffer for a while if it means the defeat of the IRGC,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Another bomb shelter in Tel Aviv struck a less pious tone, turning into a makeshift night club with red lights, a DJ and people dancing.<\/p>\n
In one video, one of hundreds of comedic shelter clips circulating online, a comedian quipped, \u201cThe nation of Israel lives\u201d – but only as long as the shelter \u201chas wifi and the iPads have battery.\u201d<\/p>\n
New mother exhausted from sheltering with baby<\/strong><\/p>\n Natalie Silverlieb was in the mamak, the communal reinforced safe room on her building\u2019s floor. She said the logistics of repeated alerts had become harder since she became a mother.<\/p>\n \u201cDoing this with a baby is crazy,\u201d she said. The room was packed, including other babies and dogs, and she and her partner tried to follow a system that would get their baby back to sleep quickly.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so, so, so exhausted,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I was doing this on my own the last time, I could at least come back to my apartment and just lay on the couch. But now there\u2019s no laying on the couch. It\u2019s go, go, go.\u201d<\/p>\n For Silverlieb, the uncertainty of the past few weeks hadn\u2019t disappeared so much as changed shape. \u201cThe waiting for it to end is more stressful than the waiting for it to begin,\u201d she said. \u201cI just hope it ends quickly. It\u2019s a lot, period.\u201d<\/p>\n In a nearby grocery store, another siren, the 30th or so in as many hours, sent shoppers scrambling. In the residential building next door, the shelter downstairs was decrepit and doorless. Children played limbo with a strip of red cloth. One woman began pitching HAAT, a new, mostly Arab-run delivery service she said was giving Wolt a run for its money. A few people pulled out their phones to download the app, trading jokes about whether it would deliver to shelters, and during sirens. Because it is Ramadan, Muslims in Israel are doubly on edge, from fasting on top of the missiles.<\/p>\n Sasha, who lives in the building, said she was \u201chalf happy\u201d the waiting was over. The repeated dashes up and down the stairs, she joked, were at least getting her to her daily goal of 10,000 steps. Still, she said, it \u201cwon\u2019t help us if the [Iranian] regime doesn\u2019t fall.\u201d<\/p>\n A Ukrainian who grew up under Soviet rule, which taught her what it meant to live without freedom, she said. \u201cWe want to see the Iranian people free and a better Middle East for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n Evyatar said he doubted the regime would fall \u201cunless the Iranian citizens themselves finish the job.\u201d<\/p>\n Ma\u2019or, another neighbor, said he would \u201chappily sit in my bomb shelter if it meant giving my Iranian friends, both in Iran and out, a chance at a normal life.\u201d He pointed to a friend in Tehran who works as a tattoo artist, an illegal trade under the regime.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, he\u2019s not even free to give someone a tattoo without going underground,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m baffled by the people cheering [on] the IRGC<\/a>. People who say this war is illegal are out of their goddamn minds.\u201d<\/p>\n Evyatar said he began Saturday uneasy, but grew calmer as the hours passed and he gauged the pattern of the strikes. The alerts came far more often than the 12-day war, but the blasts felt less intense. \u201cAt the beginning I felt scared, like it was June all over again.\u201d Over time, he said, he has learned to tell the difference between the sounds of interceptions, shrapnel and direct impacts.<\/p>\n As he spoke, a loud boom hit outside, rattling the shelter and stopping the conversation. \u201cThat, for example, was a June sound,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It turned out to be shrapnel coming down not far away. The impact was part of a wider series of strikes across central Israel, including one that turned lethal in Beit Shemesh<\/a>, west of Jerusalem, when a public bomb shelter was hit. Nine people were killed, including multiple from the same family. Dozens more were wounded, and others still were unaccounted for.<\/p>\n Beit Shemesh strike changes city atmosphere<\/strong><\/p>\n In Beit Shemesh, the strike changed the atmosphere in a city that had so far heard only occasional sirens, during both this round and the last one.<\/p>\n Netanel Alkoby, a Beit Shemesh resident who spent 12 years in the reserves with the Home Front Command, said he has always taken alerts seriously, but that over time a degree of complacency still set in. The strike, he said, \u201cchanged our perspective a lot,\u201d forcing him to be more careful, more on guard, and to treat every warning \u201cwith the utmost seriousness.\u201d<\/p>\n In the underground shelter at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, a sign overhead read \u201cthe safest shelter in existence.\u201d Patients hobbled in, some with casts and crutches. With doctors also sheltering there, patients used the moment to buttonhole them with questions.<\/p>\n One staffer watched a line of women form to speak to a physician. \u201cPoor thing, he can\u2019t even enjoy the siren in peace,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Back in the central Jaffa shelter, a couple in black leather and dark glasses stood apart from the banter around them.<\/p>\nIN A shelter in a Jaffa apartment building, residents discussed about whether a new delivery service would deliver during sirens, March 1, 2026. (credit: DEBORAH DANAN\/JTA)<\/p>\n