An ordinary war day in Haifa

The day started (not particularly early - thank you Nasrallah) with an air-raid siren . It caught Irit just while she was exercising , but, no choice, we run down to the shelter. We've tidied up our shelter and put in some more chairs because we're expecting the visit of Irit's daughter-in-law, Einat and her 3 children. Irit's elder son has also been called up into emergency reserve in the army (we now have 3 family members who've been called up) and Einat doesn't feel comfortable staying alone in their apartment with 3 children (including a 6 week old baby). They are, as it were, internal refugees in Haifa. We are happy to have them stay with us - it's nice to have children around the house.

They come at about 10 a.m. and soon afterwards the siren goes off again and 8 of us rush down to the shelter - Irit, Shiri (from the upstairs apartment) , Einat, her 3 children, me and the dog.
The next alarm catches me outside walking the dog. I find shelter but our dog, Sushi, gets rather nervous when we hear a rocket explosion not that far away. So as not to give the Hezbollah aiming information, radio and televsion no longer announce the precise landing spots of the rockets in and around Haifa. But we all have friends all around Haifa so after a few phone calls we find out that one of the rockets landed near the coastal road (to Tel Aviv). That's scary because we use that road sometimes. At lunchtime I pass by there and see police cars and workmen repairing the road.

In the afternoon we only have one air raid and in the evening my 94-year old father and another elderly relative come for dinner. As I take them home, I wonder what I and they should do if they're an air aid while we're in the car. If driving when an alarm goes off, one is supposed to stop the car, get out and run for shelter. But this doesn't seem a very practical odea for the over 8o's and 90's . I don't have a satisfactory plan but fortunately it doesn't happen.

As I said, just an ordinary war day in Haifa.