Like automated entities we headed for our safe room when air raid sirens woke us at 8:30 this morning.

Messages from abroad filling my WhatsApp reflecting where people have yet to go to sleep and where they are first waking up. In the interim, Home Front instructions notwithstanding, we made a quick trip to the nearby Arab town hoping to find open stores where we could replenish my 5-kilo monthly supply of Medjool dates and a kilo of coffee beans before we run out in the next few days. The local supermarket open on Saturdays had a full parking lot when we passed it. With the lines there, chances are we got home more quickly driving to Tira and back.

Yesterday, discussion focused on which days schools close next week for Purim.  Which days kids wear their costumes to school. Earlier last week, a friend told me her first-grade granddaughter had a nightmare after the teacher told them the story of the Book of Esther. I guess the part about Esther saving the Jewish people was lost to the message about Haman, the Wicked, set on killing all the Jews. Haman. Hamas. Not a great story for kids in Israel these days. So much for celebrating that story of survival. No school costume parties tomorrow.

Our son-in-law was called up this morning for reserve duty. The last time I checked my phone (at minute-to-minute intervals – making this writing choppy), a Ynet headline said we have to be prepared for white pickup trucks. Any Israeli knows what that means. Border attacks – north and south, October 7-style.

Fortunately, we made it from Kfar Saba to Raanana (15 minutes door to door) without a siren on the way. But when we knocked on the door at Haim’s daughter’s place, another siren sounded. In and out of the safe room. The 4-year-old dressed Haim in her Pikachu costume! Then a major pillow fight between the 8-year-old and the 11-year-old ended in tears in the safe room. The 4-year-old told me we’re afraid of sirens.

Just let this war end without more casualties, anywhere.

Anticipating this war since late December was trying my nerves. The banality of living with it has its own effects.

Harriet Gimpel, February 28, 2026

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