Israel war: Tel Aviv locals panic-buy, shelter in bunkers

News Corp Australia’s European Correspondent Danielle Gusmaroli ran for cover as rocket sirens sounded across Tel Aviv. Watch video.

A young woman squats in the corner rocking backwards and forwards with her hands clasped firmly to her ears.

Her husband stands beside her, rubbing her back reassuringly. She refuses to look up at anyone in the claustrophobic basement of an apartment block.

The thick stone walls violently shake.

Residents find shelter in the claustrophobic basement of an apartment block under the street in Tel Aviv. Picture: Danielle Gusmaroli

A woman covers her ears as she rocks in the corner while bombs are intercepted overhead in Tel Aviv. Picture: Danielle Gusmaroli

“Boom, boom,” sounds the Iron Dome — Israel’s mobile all-weather air defence system — as it intercepts the rocket fired from Gaza bound for the city 71.3km away.

“That’s our God, he’s working for us again,” says a man in his late 50s in a chequered shirt and shorts frantically sweeping the debris with a broom.

The bomb shelter is messy, with old pots of dried tinned paint and tools piled on a rotting wooden shelf. Dislodged bricks and stones are strewn across the ground from bombings past.

Around 10 people are cramped inside the 5m by 5m windowless shelter, with a ceiling so low many had to scrunch their necks to enter.

One young man in his late twenties turns on the torch light on his mobile phone.

“Sorry it’s a bit messy in here, is this your first air raid siren?” he asks, focusing in the dim light on the new face in the room.

“We’ll make it cleaner for you next time,” he jokes and moods lighten briefly.

“You look worried,” he says, “don’t worry, you get used to it.”

“Welcome to our lives, this is Tel Aviv. You have to wait here 10 minutes to make sure if there is any shrapnel it has all fallen.”

An Israeli missile launched from the Iron Dome defence missile system attempts to intercept a rocket, fired from the Gaza Strip, over the city of Netivot in southern Israel. Picture: AFP

An Israeli missile is launched from the Iron Dome defence missile system. Picture: AFP

Precisely an hour and a half later, at 3.45pm, the siren warning sounded again.

This time shoppers panic buying at Rami Levy supermarket in the Ra’anana district drop their loaded trolleys and baskets and run for the prayer room at the side of the building.

There is some pushing and shoving amid fear not all 50 people will fit into the bunker decked with pews and prayer books.

Pushing past the discarded trolleys after the air raid shelter, a mother turns to her little boy, silenced by the day’s events, to ask him what sweets he would like her to buy?

“Mum that’s two bombs today, are the terrorists getting closer?” he asks.

“It’s fine, sometimes it happens more days than others, but it’s always fine, let’s buy some nice sweets,” she says.

Panic buying at Rami Levy supermarket Tel Aviv. Shoppers abandon trolleys as bomb sirens sound. Picture: Danielle Gusmaroli

The deafening siren came on the back of an earlier alarm sounded in the city considered one of the safest for retaliation attacks after Hamas issued a warning over the displacement of Palestinian civilians due to heavy Israeli bombardment.

“I moved back to Israel three years ago and I’m still not used to the sirens, each one is a warning that death keeps coming for you, you can’t let your guard down,” said supermarket shopper Yael Rachmani.

“I’m doing my weekly shop but tripling the amounts, dry foods, rice, lentils, toilet rolls, anything that will keep. You don’t know when the terrorists will come.

“Some Israelis are nonchalant about the air raids and don’t bother going but I bolt every time, they’re traumatic.

“I can’t pick up and leave, my family is here, we have nowhere else in the world to go.”

She saw history repeat itself, she said.

“My grandmother was a holocaust survivor and this brings back intergenerational trauma of persecuted Jewish people.”

Panic buying at Rami Levy supermarket in Tel Aviv which has run out of water and is running low on baby supplies. Picture: Danielle Gusmaroli

Shelves at the large Tel Aviv store were denuded of essentials – water, baby food, toilet rolls and non perishables – as locals moved to equip their “safe places” with rations for 72 hours, on the advice of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Home Front.

Apart from the obvious staple of grains, other popular goods — onions, ginger and garlic, frozen vegetables, hard cheese, oil, pickles and spices — were flying off the shelves.

Sales were up 200 per cent since the announcement of the IDF advice, though some had sold out of water days ago, as Israelis read the writing on the wall.

Owner Samuel Zuckerman, said double the number of shoppers were queuing at the door from daybreak til late.

“It used to be 1000 people a day, now we’re looking at more than 2000 – I can’t get supplies in quickly enough … we’ll be lucky if we get a delivery of water tomorrow, we’ve run out completely,”

The sense of fear is palpable in Tel Aviv and everyone is mucking in to help one another.

Batal Navon is stocking the boot of her car with provisions for 72 days for her grandmother Shoshana Shomkiel, 82, and grandfather Menasha, 85. Picture: Danielle Gusmaroli

“I’m buying for my grandfather and grandmother, I’ve driven from the north to stock their cupboards, they can’t shop, my grandfather can’t lift his arms, or carry heavy bags,” said Batal Navon.

“What if the terrorists come to their area and they can’t leave their home? I’m scared for them.”

Her grandmother Shoshana Shomkiel, 85, shook her head.

“She must not be scared, we’ve been here before and there are worse things,” she said.

“Three of my grandchildren are in the army … we just have to pray.”

Israeli Australian Leah Schwartz, 35, has not left her apartment since the bloodbath in Gaza on Saturday to buy food for her double door shelter room in her apartment in Jaffa.

Most apartment blocks built in Israel after 2000 are equipped with bomb shelter rooms. Older ones have communal air raid shelters in stairwells leading to basements, in neighbouring buildings. Those who have nowhere to hide run for underground car parks.

“It’s not been safe enough to leave the apartment since the attack on Saturday, my mother keeps calling from Sydney to check we’re OK,” Mrs Schwartz, who left Bondi, Sydney, for Israel six years ago, said.

“My brother who came to Israel 10 years ago has been called up for service.

“We have our bunker in our apartment, it has a double metal door with some ventilation and a reinforced window and walls. We’re just waiting for what happens next …”