Too close for comfort: 12 days under fire in Be’er Sheva

It was like 7 October meets COVID-19. That’s how the “12 Day War”, otherwise known as Operation Am Kalavi played out. Another war, folded into the more than-600-day conflict Israel has been fighting on multiple fronts since Simchat Torah 2023.

In the early hours of Friday, 13 June, we were woken by the piercing wail of the missile-alert siren.

There had been talk for days about strikes on Iran, but no-one was sure, and it seemed too good to be true.

So, when those sirens wailed at 03:00, and we scrambled out of bed, down several flights of stairs, and waited in a stairwell for the boom that usually comes after Hamas, Hezbollah, or the country we thought was shooting a ballistic missile at the time – Yemen – attacks us, and nothing came, something felt off.

Suddenly, our phones were taken over by the Home Front Command warning system that lets out a frightening scream of its own. The warning made it clear that Israel had just attacked Iran, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was rousing everyone to get their backpacks, water, and other items ready for possibly long stays in the bomb shelter.

The long-awaited war with Iran – the snake that had wrapped its coils around several countries surrounding Israel – had begun.

I live in Be’er Sheva, in southern Israel. The capital of the south. I love this city. The people, the diversity, the hot-hot summers, and Johannesburg-like winters. It’s a city filled with character, and it perfectly busts the “apartheid” myth so often used to mischaracterise Israel.

As the sun rose on that Friday morning, we were told to wait near shelters, that about 600 ballistic missiles were expected to hit Israel in the first Iranian retaliation. Thank G-d, it never came.

For the umpteenth time since 7 October 2023, my husband received a call-up, so he packed his army things and donned his uniform, and I packed a bag to go sleep at friends for Shabbat who live in the neighbourhood over from us. They have a mamad (safe room) in their home, and it would save me running to the shelter alone in the dark while my husband served the country valiantly.

We hugged, and headed out to our different destinations. I told him to leave safely and come home safely, unsure what the next few weeks would bring for us. What followed was a Shabbat night of continued missile barrages, booms, sirens – like the film Groundhog Day. Except this was Sleep. Siren. Boom. Repeat. And it continued into the week. Six days in, I felt like a zombie. Like most of Israel. Wading through the day, trying to survive, knowing all too well what the night will bring. Sirens and sleeplessness.

The friends I was staying with were the neighbourhood hang out. With school, and work offices closed, everyone was there with their kids. And just like in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, everything was closed aside from essential stores because of how unpredictable the Iranian missile fire became. So, trying to keep the kids busy while finding time to work, eat, and semi-function was a challenge.

I started calling those times “Ayatollah Happy Hour”, and making funny videos because as Jews, we’ve always had to find humour in the absurd. It’s a survival skill. A special one we’ve mastered.

But on the morning of day seven, things took a drastic turn. We were woken early by the jarring pre-missile alert sirens. We headed into the safe room, and waited. The siren wailed. I kept myself distracted playing with my friends’ baby girl. But then there was a deafening boom. And we knew there’d been a hit, and nearby. The first real hit in the city.

It was Soroka Medical Center. A direct hit on our main hospital. My apartment is four blocks away. People know this, and the non-stop messages started flowing in. “Are you okay?”; “Are you safe?”; “Is there damage?”; “Do you need anything?”. Fear started creeping in – is everyone okay, were there any injuries? How badly damaged is the hospital? Wait, we live right there, what about my apartment? Are our windows blown out from the blast radius?

Everyone was shaken. The entire city. It hit close to home, and hard. A little later in the day, I made it home. My husband was coming home for Shabbat. We checked everything. Aside from some minor damage to a window frame, everything was intact. Our neighbours below us had windows blown and a glass door blown off. We were lucky. We looked out our window and could clearly see the damage to Soroka. Too close for comfort.

We slept at home that night. I slept for the first time in days. It was finally a missile-free night until 05:30, when Groundhog Day once again reared its ugly head, and we were dashing down the stairs, down the road, and into the local bomb shelter. We chatted to neighbours – Jews, Ethiopians, Bedouins, Muslims, Christians – a real melting pot. And then as the siren wailed, another massive boom. In surreal slow motion, I watched dust fall from the ceiling and a chocolate wrapper get blown off the floor by the force of the blast, fluttering in the fake wind.

Again. Another hit. Four blocks to the other side of us. A six-minute walk. We could see the smoke rising, the damage in the distance as we exited the bomb shelter. It seemed the Iranian regime was going after Be’er Sheva. Several apartment blocks were badly damaged, but thank G-d again, no serious injuries. The next three days passed in a haze, the sound of the pre-alerts ringing in my ears even when all was quiet. My husband had returned to the army. The missiles continued, less frequent now, but the nights were still restless. Our bodies had been trained to wake every two to three hours, like we were caring for a newborn.

On the final day of the war, Tuesday, 24 June, just after 05:00, we were woken again by urgent pre-alerts. We did our usual ritual. Met friends again in the shelter, but the siren didn’t come in its usual 10-minute time frame. People left thinking it was a false alarm. Meir had come home again in the early hours of the morning. We decided to wait because the Home Front Command hadn’t told us it was safe to exit the shelter. And then out of nowhere, the siren screeched, people came flooding in a little panicked, caught off guard. During the screech, a massive, earthshattering boom sounded. You could feel it in the walls and the ground. Dust fell again from the ceiling. And the entire room took a collective breath. We knew. It felt different.

We emerged, but were told to stay close to the shelter. We ran back and forth to the shelter three or four times in the space of 90 minutes. During that time, the news broke. A building had sustained a direct hit. Four people were murdered, scores injured. And it was just five minutes away. Killed as the ceasefire was about to take effect. Killed because they were Jews and the Iranian regime had to have the last word.

The messages poured in from all corners of the globe. Family, friends, and colleagues frantic with worry. A few friends messaged asking, “Are you alive? Are you okay? Please tell me you’re safe.” We were gutted. One of the worst attacks in this “short” war, and it was in my beloved Be’er Sheva. My city. I didn’t even notice I’d been shaking for more than an hour until my husband mentioned it. It was too close to home. Again, too close for comfort. And I, together with so many others, kept saying in those minutes afterwards, “Oh my gosh. That could have been us! That could have been us!”

Despite the shock, pain, and sorrow, somehow, we found it in ourselves to carry on, shouldering the anguish of devastation and loss. We dusted ourselves off, and by 09:30, I was already at my computer working, while my husband sipped his coffee on a Zoom meeting.

That’s the beauty of the Israeli people.

Despite it all, nearly two years of war, relentless missile barrages from every corner of the Middle East, endless army call-ups, we keep going. We’re resilient. We find strength. Because we have to. Because we must.

They try to break us. But we don’t break.

As the song goes, “I get knocked down, but I get up again.”

Because we are: Am Yisrael Chai.

• Ilanit Liberman worked as a reporter for nine years. She now works at an international communications and public relations company.