Residents of one Tel Aviv apartment block are used to hearing the terrifying sounds of explosions, interceptions and missiles landing while huddling in their bomb shelter. This time, however, what they heard was a soft, broken weeping coming from the lobby – which grew louder and more urgent shortly after the blast from a nearby missile strike shattered all the windows in the building. When they all emerged from the shelter, they encountered a heartrending sight: their elderly neighbor, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, sitting in her wheelchair next to the elevator, trembling with fear and almost choking on her tears, as her dedicated caregiver tries to comfort her.

“She was asleep when the sirens went off and didn’t wake up because she was very tired that day,” the caregiver tells Shomrim. “She doesn’t remember anything because of the Alzheimer’s, so, when she woke up, I had to calm her down because of all the noise of the sirens. It took quite a while for me to get her ready. By the time we got down to the ground floor in the elevator, we heard loud explosions. It was terrifying.”

Authorities in Israel are well aware of the problem of elderly citizens who do not have access to protected spaces or who find it hard to get to the bomb shelter in time. The problem dates back to before the establishment of the State of Israel, when there was no legal obligation to build houses or apartment blocks with bomb shelters. During the 1950s and 1960s, the law was amended to obligate the construction of shelters in all new housing, but various exemptions were issued over the years and not all new residential construction included a shelter. In the 1960s, all the loopholes were closed and every new building had to be equipped with a shelter. In 1991, a law was passed that every apartment must have a reinforced safe room.

Many apartments in older buildings, especially in city centers, are occupied by elderly people who purchased them many years ago and still live there. If the building does not have a bomb shelter, they have to rush to a nearby public shelter. Even if they are lucky enough to have a shelter in the basement, however, there is a good chance that an elderly person or someone with mobility issues will struggle to reach it in time.

The incident described above is just one of many that has come to Shomrim’s attention. Another case was that of Yehoshua and Navah, an independent and fully functional couple from Kfar Sava in their early 80s. Their apartment is located on the second floor of a building constructed in the late 1980s; it is built on stilts and has an elevator.

Like many people his age, Yehoshua suffers from chronic hip pain. On most days, he manages it without much difficulty—but stairs are simply not an option. “We’re not supposed to use the elevator when the sirens go off,” explains Shai, a relative of the couple. “They leave their apartment, but because it takes them so long to get downstairs, they usually choose to wait it out in the stairwell. When the missiles were coming from the Houthis, it was somewhat bearable. But now—it’s absolutely terrifying.”

Shai adds that his relatives are not alone in the stairwell. “There is another elderly couple living above them who also can’t get to the shelter because of their physical condition. The four of them sit there and pray that a missile doesn’t hit.”

During the current conflict, the Home Front Command has started to send out early warning messages ahead of a missile barrage. This allows many Israelis to make it to their protected spaces in time and explains the large numbers of people who shelter in the Tel Aviv light rail’s underground stations, as well as parking lots and other places. These early alerts are useful, but do not solve the problems facing people with mobility issues. Shomrim also heard about the case of an elderly woman with limited mobility in one leg. “She limps heavily in one leg,” her grandson explained, and does not even try to get to the shelter located two floors below her apartment, let alone a public shelter elsewhere.

There is no solution

A spokesperson for the ZAKA emergency service recently issued a public appeal for Israelis to be aware of their elderly or isolated neighbors when the sirens sound. “We run a year-round campaign encouraging people to check to see if someone is missing, to knock on their neighbors’ door once a day. It can save lives,” says Motti Bukchin, the ZAKA spokesperson. “After the war broke out, our people noticed at some of the scenes that there were elderly people who were struggling to get out of their homes. I saw it with my own two eyes. In light of this, we decided to launch a campaign to raise awareness, to encourage people to check and make sure that their elderly neighbors make it to the shelter of the reinforced space in time.”

The welfare departments of some towns and councils have also started to reach out every day to the elderly and infirm, and some apartment blocks have also launched their own initiatives. Everyone involved agrees, however, that this solution relies on awareness and monitoring from municipalities. For local initiatives, they acknowledge it is at best a partial solution. A total solution, they say, will only come when the overwhelming majority of apartments in Israel have a reinforced security room.