Boston area resident in Tel Aviv bomb shelter: ‘You don’t know when the next missile attack will come’
A Boston area resident visiting family in Israel is now staying in a community bomb shelter, as she says the last week has been “surreal” and uncertain with people always on their toes, not knowing when the next rocket attack will start.
Rachel Raz, 50, has been visiting family in Tel Aviv after not being able to see them for more than a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The last week, however, has turned chaotic amid the deadly Israel-Palestinian conflict, and the Waltham resident is now sleeping at a neighborhood bomb shelter.
“You don’t know when the next missile attack will come,” Raz told the Herald at around 10 p.m. local time Sunday in Tel Aviv as she sat outside the shelter, looking out at the “calm and beautiful city.”
“It can change in any second,” she said.
If a siren goes off, that means people have 90 seconds to get inside a bomb shelter.
“When you’re taking a shower, you hope nothing happens,” Raz said. “You just never know what’s going to happen. After Wednesday, it’s just become crazy. It’s surreal.”
The airports are now closed. Raz, who grew up in Israel, said hopefully she’ll be able to return to Massachusetts later this week.
“We never imagined this would happen,” she said.
Danny Traub, 28, is a Boston University graduate who moved to Israel six years ago. The past week has been “a very scary situation,” Traub said from his Jerusalem home Sunday night.
He said they’re constantly worried about rocket attacks from the Hamas militant group. His home’s top floor is a protected bomb shelter.
“We’re very lucky we’re constantly protected while sleeping,” Traub said. “Not everyone is so lucky.”
Traub works in a suburb of Tel Aviv, but he has decided to work from home during the conflict, citing the rockets raining down there in recent days.
“We’ve decided to stay at home in Jerusalem, but if we go out for something, we need to know exactly where to run to if there’s a siren,” he said. “It’s a very scary situation.”
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3oj4ti8
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