Bomb shelters prepared in Jerusalem after rockets are fired from Gaza

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/09/jerusalem-prepares-bomb-shelters-rockets-fired-gaza

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Jerusalem was preparing hundreds of bomb shelters on Wednesday after rockets fired from Gaza targeted the city for the first time since Israel's 2012 war with Hamas.

Thousands of residents headed to shelters on Tuesday night after four rockets were fired at the city just before 10pm. Residents reported hearing loud thuds as Israel's Iron Dome missile defence system intercepted the rockets.

Jerusalem's mayor, Nir Barkat, said the city was working to make sure that normal life could go on even if the attacks escalated. "This is something we have been preparing for," he said.

But the attacks on Tuesday night in Jerusalem came as a surprise to the authorities. In many cases shelters have been disused for years, and some residents reached them to find them locked or nobody there.

In the run down orthodox neighbourhood of Mea Shearim, the senior foreign affairs adviser to Barkat, Brachie Sprung, showed the Guardian around a bomb shelter just a few metres from the city's light railway line and Arab East Jerusalem and in the middle of a children's playground.

On the steps leading down to the shelter's main room, graffiti had been sprayed on the walls and the warren of dark rooms smelt musty. Inside cupboards were hundreds of prayer books along with rotting food.

In the wake of Tuesday night's rocket attacks, a message was sent out on Twitter for Jerusalemites to enter shelters. Those residents who found their shelters locked then took to social media to complain.

Sprung said: "This isn't like Sderot where people know what to do. Jerusalem isn't used to getting rockets." She added that though the shelter was in an orthodox Jewish neighbourhood, the Arab community living on the other side of the railway tracks were able to use them also. "Rockets don't discriminate," she said.

But on the other side of the street from the Mea Shearim bomb shelter, Arab residents of East Jerusalem said they were not concerned with the threat from Gaza. Most did not know whether they had bomb shelters in their area, and said that even if they did they would be reluctant to use them.

A 45-year-old carpenter working in his workshop on the other side of Jerusalem's light railway said that Hamas had the right to defend itself in Gaza, and disputed that the rockets being fired north were capable of killing people in Israel.

He said: "I don't think the rockets can reach here and even if they do, these are primitive weapons – how can you compare this power with that of the Israelis? Even if they do, it is better to die out here in the open than die in a bomb shelter."

A 66-year-old shopkeeper near Damascus Gate, who also declined to be named, agreed. He said: "We don't have bomb shelters and even if we did we wouldn't go to them. We are not afraid to die."

The shopkeeper said that Palestinians in East Jerusalem supported Hamas when they fired rockets, even though they could potentially land in their own neighbourhoods. "The Israelis are afraid to die because they are living a good life – we are not, and so we are not afraid."