People sleeping at the underground parking lot-turned-public shelter at Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Center mall live in a strange sort of alternative reality.

Past cars parked on the minus-2 and minus-3 levels, the minus-4 floor opens onto a dimly lit tent city with dozens of colorful camping tents pitched by those who have been living there full-time since the war commenced.

While many Israeli homes have reinforced safe rooms, thousands of older apartments and buildings lack easy access to shelter. For some residents, the only way to avoid repeated sprints during missile sirens has been to relocate entirely — turning public bomb shelters into temporary homes.

The need for shelter is hardly hypothetical with near-daily attacks on the city: On Tuesday morning alone, an Iranian missile injured four people and badly damaged property.

“I teach classes online, and stopping in the middle every time there is a siren is messing up my life and my job,” said Gal, a 35-year-old woman who moved into the Dizengoff shelter last week. “Staying here has made my life easier, and I have more time to see friends and go to the beach. It’s definitely a unique experience, but that’s life.”

Gal described the atmosphere as she sat with her laptop at a small wooden picnic table, eating reheated food left by one of the vendors in the mall. The shelter, crowded with living quarters delineated by mattresses and bags of personal items, was mostly empty of people during the day, but the unmistakable odor of unwashed bodies lingered heavily in the air.

“There are some strange people with dogs here, and I’ve definitely heard romance happening in some of the tents,” Gal said. “But I’ve met some new people, and some friends here are planning a pajama party tonight. Most people are nice, but there are some stressful moments. There’s a sense of being calm but watchful, very aware of your surroundings.”

In recent days, Gal has showered at friends’ homes and at the beach, and in one case, at the home of a stranger who was looking to help. She says her friends don’t see any social stigma in her shelter lifestyle, although people are amazed that she has been away from her bed for so long.

“If I can sleep the whole night here, I prefer it,” she said.

Since Israel and the US launched strikes against Iran’s military infrastructure just over three weeks ago, millions of Israelis have been sent running to shelters on a daily basis to escape deadly ballistic missiles fired by the Islamic regime.

Massive underground shelters in Tel Aviv like Dizengoff — along with others underneath Habima Square and Basel Square — are designed to hold thousands of people at times of war, said Noah Efron, a member of the Tel Aviv- Jaffa municipal council. These are part of a network of facilities that includes hundreds of smaller shelters in schools and private buildings around the city.

During the war, the Tel Aviv municipality is working very seriously to ensure that all the residents’ needs are met, Efron said. In City Hall, Mayor Ron Huldai and dozens of workers from all branches of local government meet twice a day in a “war room” for status updates on the city’s residents and facilities.

“The seriousness and comprehensiveness of these meetings is breathtaking,” Efron said. “They have precise data about everything from damaged homes and injuries to conditions in each shelter. The conversation jumps from big-picture policies and coordination to the needs of specific families, and then ends with a clear plan for the day.”

The goal is to provide residents with the things they need to live more normal lives in the shelters, said Efron. He has been sleeping every night in a public shelter near his home in the center of the city.

“In our local shelter, for example, we have a small community of people who come every night with their children and dogs,” said Efron, who is also chair of the graduate program in Science, Technology and Society at Bar Ilan University and the host of The Promised Podcast. “We talk for a bit, read our books and watch our movies, and we keep an eye out for each other.”

In the larger shelters, various organizations have mobilized to provide childcare, food, and even prayer services for residents, while the municipality ensures that sites are well-maintained and equipped with fresh water dispensers and other essentials.

For those not living underground, the strain of constant missile fire is reshaping daily life. More than 400 residents of Tel Aviv were unable to live in their homes due to damage as of Monday night, a number that has risen after a missile damaged six to eight buildings Tuesday morning, Efron said. That blast came after a lull in rocket sirens over the course of the previous day.

On Monday, Tel Aviv residents said they woke up a bit less exhausted than usual, after an overnight lull in rockets gave them one of their best nights of sleep since the war started.

“The city that never sleeps” was roused by rocket sirens only once during the previous night, around midnight, people said. Often during the war, residents have received alerts to seek immediate shelter three or four times over the course of an night, leaving many, as one resident put it, “walking like zombies.”

Locals who spoke with The Times of Israel described their efforts to keep to a schedule as Operation Roaring Lion disrupts their lives.

“I think things have improved a bit since the beginning of the war, when we had some really bad nights,” said Inbal Wayne, who was selling jewelry at a booth at the Dizengoff Center mall in the center of Tel Aviv. “But even when there aren’t sirens, we don’t really sleep as well, because the body just gets used to being in a state of alert, half-awake and half-asleep.”

Wayne, who is also trying to develop a career as a singer, lives in the nearby city of Holon, but she has forced herself to get out of bed to come to work every day, despite her exhaustion.

“It’s crazy that we are all doing this,” she laughed. “I keep wondering if there is going to be a point where I go crazy. I’m drinking a lot of coffee during the day, and some alcohol at night. It’s really important for staying sane.”

Sales at Wayne’s shop, and at the mall in general, have been flattened by the war.

“I’d say that the mall gets less than half its usual number of shoppers, depending on the day,” she said. “And of those, probably about half here just to walk around, not really shopping. But some people respond to the war by buying more emotionally. This morning, one woman came and made a huge purchase. I guess that’s her way of coping.”

At the Azrieli Center mall, like at Dizengoff, foot traffic was down significantly from prewar levels. One store worker estimated that activity was down to about 20% of normal operations, but Nicole, who works at a shoe store, said it was closer to 50%.

“Things are calm here, even when the siren goes off during the day,” she said. “I think it’s because we are trained to get used to it from a very young age. I remember the first time I was in a shelter, in second grade, and it was very traumatic for me, but then you realize it’s normal.”

Nicole said she noticed that people’s shopping habits had changed during the war.

“A lot of people here just came to get out of the house,” she said. “People are buying basic things that are on sale. Normally, before the Passover holiday, people come and buy new clothes, but this year, they’re not thinking about that.”

Only upside: No traffic

Outside, on the streets of Tel Aviv, traffic was flowing smoothly, a rare treat in a city known for some of the worst traffic in the world. During the war, Israelis are advised to avoid unnecessary travel and to remain close to shelters to the extent possible.

In the Sarona neighborhood, a dining and shopping hub that is also home to some of the city’s leading technology and financial companies, activity was at a virtual standstill. The outdoor playground and picnic area, usually packed on weekdays, had only a few people lingering around.

Sergey Vasiutin, an employee of the Tax Authority, has been working from home for much of the war, but he came into his office near the complex on Monday.

“The office is mainly empty,” he said. “I think we had about 10 or 12 people on my floor today, when usually we have a hundred. During the coronavirus, we figured out how to do our work from home, and we’ve gotten used to it during the roller coaster of life since then.”

Working from home with a three-year-old hasn’t been so simple, though, even as the family does its best to maintain a normal routine.

“We’ve trained him to stay calm and go straight to the mamad (safe room) when there is a siren, and he gets that now,” Vasiutin said. “But at his age, he’s full of energy and needs to be with other kids. Nobody’s sleeping, but that’s the wartime routine, and we’ve gotten used to it.”

For others, as well, the drama of Israel’s current war is a step down from what they’ve endured in past conflicts.

“I’m used to this,” said Itamar Tabacof, who lives near Sderot, in southern Israel, and works in a Tel Aviv law firm. “We’ve been living down the road from Gaza and getting rockets for over 20 years, so this doesn’t feel like anything new. These days, I feel safer at home, where we don’t get a lot of rockets from Iran, than I do in Tel Aviv.”

After years of living under constant fire from Hamas missiles, Tabacof said shooting from Gaza has completely stopped since Israel’s military operation there. The city, which saw 53 people killed in battles with Hamas during the October 7, 2023, attack, was recently granted millions of shekels for advanced security systems to bolster its resilience to future attacks.

“At this point, I just hope the fighting will end soon,” Tabacof said. “We just want to go back to living normal lives.”

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