Tents

On the fourth floor of the underground parking lot of the Dizengoff Centerone of the most popular shopping centers in Tel Aviv, the difficult thing these days is seeing cars. There are also not many motorcycles, vans or any other type of vehicle. What has occupied the squares painted on the ground for weeks are dozens of tents, the ‘home’ improvised by Israelis looking for a place to protect themselves from the attacks with which Iran has responded to ‘Operation Epic Fury’ that on February 28 ended the life of its leader, Ali Khamenei. While on the surface the sirens sound warning of the arrival of missiles, there, on the -4 floor, life goes on among removable tents. “Look where I am”. With that phrase I started a few days ago tiktoker Andrea Bisso (@Latinaenisrael96) a video in which it shows the parking lot of a shopping center in Israel. The curious thing is that as you walk through its corridors you don’t see cars or people with shopping carts, but rather tents, an improvised table on pallets where food is distributed, handwritten posters hanging from the columns, clothes hanging from cables… The landscape that marks the daily life of the dozens of families who take refuge there. “People are living here now, in times of war. This is where they have moved. It’s incredible how people started to live in a parking lot. These are people who have small children, can’t run to a shelter, don’t have one nearby or are elderly who can’t go down the stairs… They prefer to live here,” relates Andrea as she walks through the parking lot. “Alternate reality”. The tiktoker is not the only one that has shown how the war has transformed some unexpected places in Israel. A few days ago Zeb Stub also did it on an extensive report for The Times of Israel in which it affects the same idea. In fact, he talks about the “alternative reality” that has been created on the -4th floor of the Dizengoff Center parking lot, where “a city” basically made up of dozens of tents has been deployed. Curiously, life activates beneath the surface while it decays in commercial areas. Stub explains for example that in the Azrieli Centeralso in Tel Aviv, some businesses estimate that activity has fallen by 20% or even 50% in recent weeks. “Many people come simply to get out of the house,” they say from a shoe store. “The normal thing before Passover is that people come to buy new clothes, but this year they are not thinking about that.” Life goes on underground. Gal, a teacher who teaches remotely, explained to the Israeli newspaper that she decided to move to the Dixengoff shelter last week among other reasons because she had to constantly interrupt her work in her apartment. “I teach online classes and having to stop every time the siren sounds is making my work more complicated,” recognize the woman In the shelter you don’t just see people eating, sleeping, working or simply hanging out. a chronicle from the Associated Press (AP) talks about much more casual scenes, such as a bride posing with her family for a wedding photo session or young people dressed up for celebrate the holiday Purim Jewish… There are also spaces for attend to medical emergencieslike the improvised one in a parking lot under the Sheba Medical Center, in Ramant Gan. Are there no conventional shelters? Yes. Israel has public shelters. It is also not unusual to find private spaces designed precisely so that people can take shelter during emergencies. When the alarms sound, people barricade themselves in them, usually for fifteen minutes, half an hour… however long the alert lasts from when the sirens sound. However, there are those who, for one reason or another, choose to put their belongings in a suitcase and temporarily settle in spaces where they feel safer than in their homes, such as parking lots. The Dizengoff Center is an example, but there is more. Under the Tel Aviv bus station there are dozens of families, especially immigrants, who have settled in tents. Crossover attacks. Noah Efron, from the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal council, claimed these days that the underground shelters in Tel Aviv are designed to house families at times like the current one, when the Middle East is convulsed by the offensive launched by Israel itself and the US on Iran. Over the last few weeks, cities like Tel Aviv have received attacks of the Islamist regime, damaging buildings and causing injuries and even fatalities. Israel is not the only one living under the threat of missiles. His army has also been hitting Iran and Lebanon for weeks. In fact, in cities like Tehran or Kfar Rumman there are a significant balance of wounded and dead. Images | TikTok and Wikipedia In Xataka | Iran has just crossed the great energy red line: Türkiye is the first victim of a blackout that is already looking to Europe