Noa Borstein Hadad
Seven months ago, on the night of June 15, 2025, at 3 p.m., the floor of the small bomb shelter of my building on Daniel Street in Bat Yam trembled. The light went out at once. A cloud of dust rose and filled the concrete-walled room. And then silence. Louder than the “boom” heard outside the building a moment earlier. The door of the shelter flew open, with a bang, from the blast that glued us all to the wall. Two passersby rushed in. “A missile has hit here, on the building!” they shouted and stormed out of the shelter. Even my first-floor neighbor’s loud transistor fell silent.
Emerging from the shelter, we blinked in disbelief at the extent of the destruction. The missile had hit the tallest building in our neighborhood – right in front of our building – the corner of Jerusalem Street and Daniel Street.
Thirty-five people are missing, news websites reported. Later that week, the final death toll of nine was announced.
The fleet of rescue vehicles, parked at the intersection of the two streets in the cordoned-off disaster area, encountered a parallel flood of civilians seeking to help or gather information about the situation. For our neighborhood, the building is a local landmark. The first “skyscraper” in the neighborhood, built with communal balconies, a kind of roofed area in the middle of the building, shared by all the neighbors. On the ground level is a commercial center that is almost as old as the entire neighborhood, with an ancient glazier who doesn’t intend to retire, a grocery store that imports nostalgic Russian food products, a store of cleaning products, and more.
“The scene has been declared a disaster area,” declared the news broadcaster. My neighbors, with dusty faces, walk aimlessly through the debris. Shards of glass, broken shutters, squashed vehicles, and unimaginable amounts of dust cover the road and sidewalk. A man empties a half-liter bottle of water on his car, impossibly trying to clear the dust.
A woman in a wheelchair is led by her daughter, who is holding a suitcase in her other hand. A half-torn Israeli flag flutters from a window with nothing left but a frame. In front of the “scene of the disaster,” a man and a woman sit on a bench, chain-smoking, staring at the building that, until a short time ago, was their home.
But all this was so long ago
On the morning of Saturday, February 28, 2026, when we, the residents of the small building on Daniel Street, met again in our shelter, the past was not foremost on our minds. The new neighbor’s dog, who had moved into the building after the explosion and the ensuing renovation, behaved like a Tasmanian Devil. One by one, she attacked all the dogs in the shelter. The 13-year-old boy holding her leash tried to calm her down. “Everything is fine,” he told her. The other dogs sniffed each other. The neighbor on the second floor, with his pet pincer, who was always dressed in the latest doggy style, handed out snacks for all. For the dogs, of course, not for us.
In the corner of the shelter, lit by the new light we had installed after the electricity was completely burned out in the previous round, sat the neighbor with the transistor. He turned the volume up, all the way, and a little more. Meaningless words from news broadcasters filled the air. The upstairs neighbor, with her two adult children, came down with folding chairs and set them up in front of the old bicycles leaning against the wall. Three months ago, regardless of anything, the House Committee (that’s me) decided to move an old sofa to the shelter – it’s better for us to have somewhere to sit instead of throwing it in the trash.
Subdued conversations in Russian, Arabic, and Hebrew resonate in the shelter. The words are absorbed into the white concrete walls. “Why did they start an attack in the winter?” one of the neighbors tries to start a conversation. “They usually attack in the summer,” says another neighbor. “It doesn’t matter if it’s winter or summer; there are elections soon,” another neighbor answers. “What a cynic you are,” the neighbor who started the conversation throws at her. It’s about the weather, politics, or both. The neighbor shrugs, and the conversation dies down.
“Well, what is being said?” someone asks. “Nothing yet,” reply those who managed to locate a wisp of Wi-Fi from their apartment.
The neighbor’s son from the first floor comes out of the shelter first. He’s a soldier, brave, and can’t remain in a closed shelter for long. After him, some of the others hesitantly leave. “They haven’t told us that we can get out yet!” declares another neighbor, as if taking on an official duty. However, he also leaves. Closing the light behind him.
See you all with the next siren.
