Jerusalem Post: Lebanese bloggers express their views on the crisis
Jerusalem Post: Israeli Bloggers
LETTER FROM DR. K’S SISTER IN HAIFA:
Yesterday was a hard day. (Was it only yesterday)? The first barrage of rockets in Haifa came without warning…They hit a railway garage downtown and killed 8 people, wounding about 40 others. After that, we got sirens throughout the morning. Luckily, another neighbor and I had separately taken the initiative on Saturday to clean out the bomb shelter (spray against cockroaches, then sweep them and the accumulated dust away), air out the shelter, clean the toilet and provide toilet paper. So, it was ready for us when the neighbors came scurrying down the stairs at the sound of the siren. Someone had brought a radio, so we could listen to the news bulletins. I brought six folding chairs, people with children brought in mattresses and later toys and books. The neighbor from the ground floor apartment decided to go home at some point and came back with hot tea and biscuits.
Now, that we (in Haifa) have experienced four sirens (three yesterday and one at 6:00 a.m. this morning), we know more what to do. We no longer sit in the shelter for half an hour at a time (one of the neighbor’s children insisted in sleeping in the shelter, though!), but get up after 5-15 minutes and go back home.
After the first siren yesterday, I brought a camera to our second sitting in the shelter so I could record the event for posterity. Even, though I make it sound light, my heart does race. When, the siren sounds, I say, “Oh, s___,” and run literally for dear life. Then, we hear the rockets falling with a BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The stupid newscasters on the radio then tell the listeners where they hit, but who else is listening, but the terrorists, who then know how to reposition their weapons! The reporters have been told not to give out information, but this is what they have been programmed to do, it seems.
I got up this morning, wondering if I would have enough time to take a shower and get dressed, or even go to the bathroom before the next siren. But, today we were luckier than yesterday (I suppose our air force is preventing some enemy fire). Yesterday, I stayed home until evening. Home Command had told us to stay near the reinforced concrete room (with large metal slots in place of glass windows) that most of the newer apartments have or in or near shelters. But, in the evening, after most of the day being spent with no bombing (at least not in our area), we came creeping out of our holes like mice.
Actually, I convinced A___ and a girl friend of mine to go to a meeting … I’d heard about recently. I wondered if we would get a siren during the meeting, but we didn’t….
Love, S_____
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It’s a quarter to 2:00 in the afternoon. I’ve just come up from the bomb shelter and have decided to have a bite to eat. The siren was very weak–I barely heard it this time. It turns out that the rockets I heard exploding in the distance all during the morning did not land that far from Haifa, according to the neighbors, but the siren did not go off at all. I haven’t been listening to the radio or watching the news on TV that much today. First of all, there wasn’t that much coverage on the television this morning; second of all, how much can you listen to all of it? Third of all, with my good ear attuned to the radio or TV, how will I hear the siren if it goes off?
It’s 2:45 in the afternoon; I just came back up from the bomb shelter, where we heard about 10 THUDS, some very close, some farther away. I keep imagining that I hear the whistle of a rocket whizzing by or the distant wail of a siren. My heart is pounding.
It’s 3:00, 15 minutes later. We all hear the rise and fall of the siren loud and clear this time and fly down to the shelter again. One of the neighbors heard a THUD during the siren, which means they can’t warn us quick enough. In the shelter, we hear about 5 more. There’s music on the radio, that’s all. Someone in the shelter says that a security guard in Jerusalem discovered a terrorist with a bomb in his satchel. Another soldier has been killed.
It’s 3:20, 20 minutes later. We’ve just come up from the bomb shelter again. Another alarm went off and off we ran down the stairs. Although I live on the second floor, I get to the shelter before the older woman from the first floor…We turned on the radio when we were downstairs and heard that a three-storey building (or was it four) took a direct hit and collapsed with all the inhabitants buried inside it. (I just called my boyfriend, who’s at work — one of the few people who went to work today, I understand, who said that just the top floor collapsed. But, I also heard that a fire broke out in the building). Israel has a lot of experience digging people out of collapsed structures; going to help out in Lebanon during terrorist activity there, in Kenya, I think it was, when the American embassy was bombed and in Turkey during the earthquake there. One of the neighbors asked what the inhabitants were doing in the building and not in the shelter. But, half the time, the siren only comes on after the first rocket has hit the ground. And anyway, a lot of the old apartment buildings don’t even have shelters at all and it’s too dangerous to go run to a public shelter, which it turns out is locked. …All for now, I hope.
Love, S____
The above letter was accompanied by 3 photos of women, children, dogs and books in a concrete bomb shelter.