Israel’s government on Tuesday urged its citizens to prepare sealed rooms — equipped with water, food, radios, flashlights and gas masks — where they could wait out any chemical or biological attack aimed at the Jewish state.
“Will this protect us? I don’t know,” said Razia Izraely, 47, who was altering the bedroom of her youngest girl, Nur. “But I have to do something.”
Sealed rooms are a legacy of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, when Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles, all of them carrying conventional warheads, at Israel.
Anxiety about a potential attack is the most acute in the Tel Aviv area, where most of the missiles fell in 1991. Hardest hit was the suburb of Ramat Gan, which lies just south of the Defense Ministry, the likely target.
This time around, Israel says its intelligence indicates the possibility of an Iraqi attack is low. But for any Israeli old enough to remember that time, the call to once again prepare sealed rooms brought back memories of panicky days and fearful nights.
“My second-oldest, Lili, was only a baby then, and I had to put her into this device, a plastic tent with a breathing apparatus, and I was so afraid she would not be able to breathe correctly,” Izraely recalled.
Her three daughters were upset that there would not be space in the 8-by-10-foot room — it would have to hold the girls, their parents and an adult stepbrother — for their menagerie of tropical birds, more than a dozen of them, who live in large cages out on the balcony.
“Maybe just one?” said 15-year-old Nufar. Her favorite was a parrot that has been taught to offer a political critique of the Israeli prime minister. “Bad Sharon! Bad!” it squawked.
“Ah, now we need to teach him to say, `Bad Saddam! Bad!'” said their mother, and they all collapsed in giggles.
Then Izraely went back to her checklist of things to bring into the room: a damp towel to seal the door, games for the children, books for the adults. All the gas masks already were stacked in the room’s corner.
Israel has been preparing its citizenry for months for war. Thousands of families have had their gas-mask kits “refreshed” — replaced with better models and fresh syringes of atropine, the anti-nerve-gas drug.
But the pace of preparations has quickened. On Monday came the largest call-up yet of military reservists to crew anti-missile batteries and serve in the Home Front Command, a branch of the army that deals with civil defense.
Israelis have been flocking to supermarkets to stock up on staples — bottled water, canned goods, oil and sugar. The national bus company Egged issued protective chemical suits to drivers who might have to help with mass evacuations in cities. Video-rental stores offered special deals.
Israel changed its building regulations after 1991, and new apartments have to contain a room to serve as a shelter, with fortified concrete walls and tightly fitted metal doors and shutters.
