No safe haven for those living near Israel's Iron Dome

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/17/no-bomb-shelters-residents-israel-iron-dome-missiles

Version 0 of 1.

When the sirens ring out in Tel Aviv all but the most defiant residents tend to head for the nearest bomb shelter or stairwell, but in ramshackle Kfar Shalem that is not an option.

It lies just a few blocks away from a battery of Israel's Iron Dome missile defence system, but there are no shelters in this dirt-poor neighbourhood, where concrete bungalows and corrugated iron shacks make up the housing stock. When shrapnel fell on Wednesday, residents simply went outside and lay on the ground.

"Lots of people are unhappy that we have no bomb shelters," said Dudu Lanardo, a 35-year-old who has lived in the neighbourhood his whole life, as did his father and grandfather before him.

The residents have been fighting an ongoing battle with the authorities since the 1960s, with the Tel Aviv government arguing that as Kfar Shalem was built on private land outside city limits the government has no obligation to provide services. Residents with longer ties to the area, such as Lanardo, say that Israelis who have moved in from outside the area and built homes in empty lots have compounded problems with the authorities.

Those that the city government has managed to relocate tend to live in the tower blocks that ring Kfar Shalem, which is where many of those living in the shanty town now flee every time an air raid siren sounds. One resident jokes that the 90 seconds after the sirens that the authorities give residents to reach a shelter is barely enough for him to run to the closest tower block.

Others, like Lanardo, prefer to take their chances. The father of two admits that he slept through yesterday's siren. "I am not afraid," he says, "I trust Iron Dome."

His neighbours, however, were not so lucky. A few narrow, dusty streets away, a metre-long piece of rocket shrapnel crashed through the roof of a family home on Wednesday and into the living room. Since then, Lanardo says he has contacted the municipality about building a community bomb shelter.

"They said that if the war continues, they will consider [it]," he said.