UIA gives Israelis shelter

IT’S summertime in Israel and while youngsters would rather be outdoors in playgrounds and swimming pools, some  8000 Israeli children are set to spend their school holidays cooped up in bomb shelters, as Hamas rains rockets down on Israel’s population centres.

In fact, the concern is that not enough children – and elderly – can be brought to bomb shelters quickly enough, once the chilling Code Red sirens sound and people need to find cover in a fraction of a minute.

To help out, the United Israel Appeal in Victoria and NSW has launched a special campaign to aid a Keren Hayesod program supplying compact mobile shelters.

UIA Victoria executive director Amit Tzur-Tal said a national emergency fundraising campaign in Australia will help pay for the small concrete cubes which are being positioned in strategic locations so Israelis can continue their lives as safely as possible.

She said the shelters, which are “off-the-shelf”, easily assembled and smaller than conventional bomb shelters, can be rolled out next to bus stations and near elderly people’s homes, so that motorists and pedestrians caught on the road during a Code Red emergency or older people who cannot move quickly to a shelter can still find their way to safety.

“The range of the rockets has become much wider, so if you’re waiting for the bus and there is an emergency, where will you go?,” said Tzur-Tal.

“If you want to get on with your life, if you want to go to the bank, to the supermarket, you’re driving in the car and there’s a siren, what do you do? You stop the car and get to the shelter,” she said.

In addition, Keren Hayesod figures show around 300 children have suffered from post-trauma syndrome and require urgent counselling assistance.

Tzur-Tal told The AJN the emergency UIA campaign has so far received “an amazing response” from the Jewish community and is urging donors to make special donations during the Gaza war and those who have not already done so to pay their pledged amounts from the general UIA campaign.

Donate at www.uiavic.org or phone  (03) 9272 5533.

Donate at www.uiansw.org.au or phone (02) 9361 4273.

PETER KOHN

Installing one of the mobile shelters.