It is never a good sign when the birds are quiet. And ever since the first siren at 3:00 a.m. on Friday the 13th, the normally raucous birds in our neighbourhood have been uncharacteristically subdued.
So has the rest of the city.
It is Day 9 of Operation Rising Lion, Israel’s military effort to disable Iran’s nuclear program and destroy its ballistic missile arsenal. Since then, Iran has responded with over 1,000 drones and 450 ballistic missiles, generally at night, although there have been a few random daytime incidents as well.
I’ve talked before about the safe room we are lucky to have, which is located on our floor and shared between 4 apartments. It’s not as sweet as Ben’s set-up where he has one right in his apartment, (that doubles as his bedroom), but we are way better off than folks in older buildings who have to run down several floors to a basement. (That used to be us.) Even worse are buildings that don’t have any kind of protected space, whose residents must run to a public shelter. Imagine packing up your kids and pets every time there is a siren and making a mad dash to a shelter down the road. And what if you don’t have one close by?
During the previous barrages from Gaza, people in this situation might have risked staying in their stairwells, which can provide reasonable protection from normal rockets. However, Iran’s ballistic missiles carry a payload beyond anything we have faced before (500-1,000 kg of explosives), and it is too dangerous. So in scenes reminiscent of the Blitz, people are camping out at night in underground parking lots, and even in the underground light rail stations, as below.
No matter what shelter is used, with sirens going off two or three times a night, it is safe to say that we are all pretty tired. It is a serious problem, especially for mothers managing alone with babies and small children.
Even so, we try to make light of it. This little meme has been making the rounds, and you may already have seen it.
Israel’s missile defence system can usually intercept about 90-95% of incoming rockets and missiles, which is impressive but not perfect, and there have been impacts — about 20 so far. You have probably seen pictures of some of the damage. Looking at the scenes of rubble and destroyed buildings, it is a tribute to the various shelters that deaths have been limited to 25 to date. Injuries, however, have been extensive, up to 2,300 at last count.
With all of this, it is aggravating to see how much of the media continues to misrepresent what is going on here. For example, New York Magazine’s Intelligencer ran this picture online — note the caption:
Ramat Gan is a suburb of Tel Aviv, which last I looked is in Israel; and this was damage from an Iranian missile — WTH — does no one check anything? Or do they deliberately publish a falsehood, knowing a retraction/correction will go unnoticed? At this stage, it is hard not to believe the latter.
On Thursday, the Soroka Regional Hospital in Beersheva, suffered a direct hit as we sat in our safe room. Watch out for nonsense claims from Iran that the hospital is some kind of military centre. Or, as a local journalist put it:
“Pretty sure that according to BBC and MSNBC, an Israeli hospital hit an Iranian missile.”
Obvious. No?
The truth is that a lot of the media will tie themselves into knots to distort or deny any story that might in any way evoke support for Israel . And they have been very successful. It’s infuriating.
Speaking of other nonsense, I understand that CUPE is planning a pro-Iran demonstration in downtown Toronto on Sunday: “Hands off Iran”. I could say a lot about this travesty, but not as well as this Iranian woman, who reminds us all why no one in their right mind should be advocating for the survival of Iran’s brutal theocracy, least of all an organization that claims to care about human rights. She begins by saying: ” What kind of mental contortion does it take to go from chanting “Women, Life, Freedom”, to defending the Islamic Republic that murdered Mahsa Amini over a strand of hair?” She is very eloquent and well worth watching.
https://substack.com/@maralsalmassi/note/c-127148248
Despite all that is going on around us, we live an oddly quiet life right now. Essential services are open; schools, recreational spaces, and most workplaces are closed. All our usual activities have been cancelled, as have our planned return flights. When we do go out, we stay close to home in case of upcoming missile warnings. These generally come on our phones when the IDF detects a launch from Iran. Ten minutes is all it takes for these monster missiles to make it to Israel (a distance of 1500 km), but it gives us some time to get organized before the sirens sound and we have to enter the shelter.
As a result, we have long stretches of calm, punctuated by wailing sirens and dashes to the safe room where we wait for the sound of the interceptor booms (good) or impacts (never good), and listen to the radio for news. Our neighbours translate the important stuff.
While there have been some high profile impacts in Tel Aviv and its suburbs, none have affected where we live. Having said that, one of them came awfully close to home on a personal level.
One of the 4 apartments on our floor is home to Esty, a very warm and engaging person, slightly younger than us who, having lost her husband to a long illness, has found a second chance for a happy life that includes a new partner, “Chaim”. We have now met him several times in our shelter, but a couple of nights ago — not being a fan of hanging out with the neighbours at 3:00 a.m. — he went back to his apartment in Ramat Gan for a night or two.
The next morning we had an unusual siren at around 7:00 a.m. We went to the shelter, heard a few booms, and after about 10 minutes we were told that the “event” was over. Apparently an office building had been hit. Shortly after, Esty was watching TV, and who does she see being interviewed, standing in front of his severely damaged building with its front facade blown out, but Chaim!! The office tower that was struck, was near his place, and the blast wave destroyed all the apartments in his building. He was in bed at the time — he doesn’t like his group shelter any better than ours — and by some miracle the only item in the apartment that was left intact was his bed, with him in it.
He was evacuated to a hotel, but last night when the siren sounded at 2:40 a.m., there he was, back in our safe room. Mike greeted him with: “Welcome back Mr. Lucky”. “God still loves me”, he replied with a smile. “In that case”, I thought, “I want you in here for every siren”.
And on that note, I will wrap up this post.
For anyone who would like to read an excellent summary of the war, and why it is being fought, I am attaching a link to a very good article by David Horowitz, editor of the times of Israel.
“How close was Iran to the bomb, and how far has Israel pushed it back?”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-close-was-iran-to-the-bomb-and-how-far-has-israel-pushed-it-back
I also include a link to the fact checking organization, CAMERA, that caught the Ramat Gan photo. It is worth checking in with this website from time to time, as it exposes and corrects a number of media distortions. https://www.camera.org/article/new-york-magazines-intelligencer-corrects-caption-on-israels-strike-on-ramat-gan-in-iran/
Always love your blogs. Hopefully next time with more uplifting stories like in the past.
My hairstylist is a young secular Iranian who I saw earlier this week. He has a mother and sister still in Iran. At one point in the conversation he said “ who would have ever have thought that the Israeli’s would be the one’s that liberated the Iranian people”. I thought it was a fascinating comment. He went on to say that most, if not all secular Iranians, hope this the first step to getting rid of the current regime.