Exhaustion. Confusion. Stress. Fatigue. Here’s a short war reader for concerned friends not lucky enough to be in Israel right now.

Exhaustion – from round-the-clock intrusions that begin with an alarmingly loud honking sort of noise coming from every single phone in the house that seems to increase in volume in the nanoseconds that it takes to hit the ‘ok’ button; that’s the ten-minute warning that there might be incoming missiles in your neighborhood: “Missile warning, possible alarm in the next few minutes”. This may or may not develop into a full-fledged local missile attack, for which you then have blaring sirens from the various loudspeakers positioned in and about your street. If so, you’ve got 1.5 minutes in most locations around Israel to take cover – i.e. run for your life to the nearest bomb shelter. Again.

Spend about twenty minutes to half an hour, til the all-clear signal – in your own safe room with various relatives in varying states of undress, often depending on the hour; or at a local public bomb shelter with total strangers who may actually have become like family over the past few days. Some nod in recognition, some hide in their oodies (www.oodie.eu/collections/oodies), scroll through their phone or engage in observations like ‘where do you think it landed’ or ‘how accurate do you think the missiles are’.. Again.

Listen for the boom or booms, try to figure out where it........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)