'More scary than the Gulf War'

By Raffi Berg
BBC News, Haifa

Like most Haifans who have decided to stay in this missile-battered Israeli city, 48-year-old Ron Kehrmann has spent most of the past two weeks at home.

Ron Kehrmann lost his daughter Tal in a suicide bombing

Shops and businesses have closed, and after eight people were killed in a single missile strike last Sunday, Mr Kehrmann's only employee packed up and left.

"It's very, very difficult," he said, sitting in the living room of the apartment he shares with his wife, Yafit, and 14-year-old son, Dror, in the southern district of Savyone Hacarmel.

"You can hear the missiles fall. You can hear them get closer and closer - you count the number of missiles and just hope it won't be your turn to get hit."

If you had asked me two weeks ago where is my shelter, I would have smiled and said: 'Why need a shelter?' It shows how fragile the situation is and how rapidly things can change Ron Kehrmann

The barrage has evoked some uncomfortable memories for Mr Kehrmann, a third-generation printer, whose grandparents fled Germany for Palestine in 1934 amid a rising tide of anti-Semitism.

"I will never forget how, during the 1967 Six Day War, my grandmother took me from school and ran with me into a bomb shelter - I was eight years old and that was my first experience of war," he recalled.

In the years since, Mr Kehrmann has needed to resort to bomb shelters twice more - first during the 1991 Gulf War, and now, once again, during the bombardment of northern Israel by Hezbollah.

"If you had asked me two weeks ago where is my shelter, I would have smiled and said: 'Why need a shelter?' It shows how fragile the situation is and how rapidly things can change," he said.

Tight squeeze

In fact, the Kehrmanns have sought sanctuary in their shelter - a reinforced room off one of the apartment's three bedrooms - some two dozen times since the attacks began.

"One moment you can be having a peaceful conversation, then suddenly the siren sounds and everyone dashes into the shelter," said Mr Kehrmann.

Air vents have to be covered in case of a chemical attack

"In 1991, we had a five-minute warning, but now the sirens only give us 30 seconds to get into the room and shut the door."

Just 12m square, it is a tight squeeze for an average family - this one even more so, serving a dual purpose as a spare room for most of the time, with a desk, bookshelves and large, fitted wardrobe.

All 37 apartments in the nine-storey building contain identical reinforced rooms, each one built directly above the other, and - in theory - able to withstand massive impact.

The door - the only entrance and exit - is hefty and the concrete walls are 10 inches (25cm) thick.

The room is windowless, there is no air conditioning and occupants' combined body heat quickly sends the temperature inside rising.

There are two porthole-style air vents, but these have to be covered and bolted shut if there is a threat of a chemical attack, such as during the Gulf War when Scud missiles fell on Haifa.

"Now it's more intense than the Gulf War. People here are more scared now than they were then," said Mr Kehrmann. "It's more threatening this time because Saddam Hussein only had a few dozen missiles but Hezbollah have got 13,000 of them."

Ball-bearings

Back then, the Kehrmanns took refuge in the shelter as a family of four.

The Kehrmanns had to don gas masks during the 1991 Gulf War

But three years ago Mr Kehrmann's daughter, Tal, then 18 years old, was one of 17 people killed when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on board a bus in Haifa.

"She was killed by ball-bearings packed into the bomber's belt," said Ron, "the same type of ball-bearings which are now packed into the heads of the missiles."

Back in the living room, a memorial candle burns in front of a picture of Tal, the centrepiece of a small shrine dedicated to Mr Kehrmann's beloved daughter.

"Before Tal died, I used to say everything will be okay, but everything's not okay," he said.

"It makes you realise you should never take anything for granted. To lose your home, like people have in Haifa and in Lebanon, is terrible, but life, that is irreplaceable."