C’mon Iran, give us a siren already!
The instructions are that if a siren rings, you must find a bomb shelter or a protected area.
If you’re out walking, get into a building and find the shelter.
If you’re in a car, get out, and find a protected area.
All in 90 seconds…
If the rocket comes from Iran, we usually get an early warning, about 5 minutes before the siren. Sometimes, the siren doesn’t follow the warning, because as the rocket came closer, they saw that it wasn’t coming this way.
Sometimes, there is a siren without an early warning.
And sometimes, tragically, a rocket lands without a siren or a warning…
For several months now, I have trouble walking because of pain in my legs. To reach the shelter of our building, we must walk down 2 flights of stairs and then walk about 25 meters to another entrance in our complex. To make it in 90 seconds, I must hurry and, at 77, I must be very careful not to fall down the stairs. Sometimes there are neighbors with little children on the stairs, sometimes there are neighbors with a dog on a leash that can get under my feet…
To walk/run outside to the other entrance, with the siren ringing in the air, is quite stressful and scary. Sometimes we hear explosions while running, probably from the interceptor rockets… Rita and the boys, if they are with me, tell me… don’t run! Go slowly! – Every day we hear in the news about older people who got hurt while running for shelter. But I go as fast as I can, I am too stressed to take a leisurely walk…
At first I would go down as soon as we got the early warning. Day and night, 6, 7, 8 times in 24 hours. Rita and the boys would say – what’s the hurry? Wait for the siren! – That is what they did. But I preferred to walk down leisurely, to be the first one to open the shelter, sit down in my favorite place and wait for the siren and the crowd that would come rushing in, from the 18 apartments in our complex.
But my legs started to feel the effort. 2 flights down and 2 flights up, 8 times a day, was difficult. And sometimes after the early warning, there would be no siren. I would sit alone in the shelter until the notification that this event was finished arrived on the phone and that we may go back to normal. Then I would close the shelter and come back up to our apartment. After this happened several times, I finally let Rita convince me not to go down as soon as we have the early warning but to wait for the actual siren. So I get up, day or night (I sleep fully clothed to be ready to run down to the shelter), I put on a jacket (it’s cold in the shelter), slippers, take my house keys, glasses, phone, take my pouch with my documents (all things which we leave near the door) and stand by the door, waiting. If the siren arrives, I’m ready. If no siren arrives, I’m upset that I got up for no reason, but I’m happy to have been spared walking down and up the stairs…
People do take buses and drive cars, but I’m afraid. If a siren rings when you’re in the car, you need to get out of the car and look for a shelter. But if you are in a city street, you can’t just leave the car in the middle of the street, you need to park it. Find parking, park the car and find shelter, all in 90 seconds…?
And if you’re on a highway, stop the car, open the driver’s door with cars racing by, get out, go around to the right side of the road and look for a place to lie down, in 90 seconds… very difficult for me and very dangerous for anyone…
If you can’t find shelter, you need to lie down somewhere. I’ve done this 3 times. The first time, we were returning from the airport, some 10 years ago. I pulled up the car to the side of the highway and, with the 2 small boys, we all lied down off the road and covered our heads. Other cars did the same, but many just continued driving. – We have many years of experience with rockets landing on us…
The second time was some 3 years ago. I was on a bus, he stopped at a bus stop on Ahuza, in Raanana. I thought I heard a siren, it was distant, but I got off the bus and immediately lied down on the sidewalk and covered my head with my arms. I kept looking if others were doing the same, but I suspect that I was the only one. Cars and buses continued moving on Ahuza… I felt silly, but I was right and they were wrong! – Later I told my family about it, and my son said that people must have wondered, what is this man doing lying down here… is he drunk? – It is possible that the siren was in another town, and that other people were aware of it, but I was not.
The third time was about 6 months ago. I was in Ramat Hasharon where I went for some medical treatment and the siren caught me outside. I lied down, covered my head and waited. No one else lied down… A middle-aged man saw me and wondered if I had fallen down, he asked if I was ok and if I needed help. I didn’t. – A few minutes later, a middle-aged woman asked if I needed help to get up. I didn’t think I did, but I was happy to accept it anyway.
Today, I’m not sure if I could get down to the floor to lie down, and I’m even less sure if I could get back up again… So I prefer not to put myself in such a situation, so I go out only near home, where I can walk quickly to a shelter…
I want to go down and take out the garbage, or to take a little walk. But I say “soon there will be a siren, better wait for it and go down then…” – Once I am downstairs, I say “don’t go back up yet, wait for the next siren and then go straight to the shelter…” – Why go up and down one more time, voluntarily…?
So I hardly go out these days. My main occupation is walking up and down during sirens. Actually, running down and dragging myself up. And if one day there are less sirens, I get no exercise, I get bored and I start complaining… “c’mon Iran, give us a siren already…!”
David Wolf
March 27, 2026
