A single father in Israel describes the fear of war and the struggle to keep his infant daughter safe during a day of missile alerts—
Saturday, February 28, 2025, early afternoon.
This is one of the most challenging days of my life — as a person and as a father.
I’m writing this post in short fragments, in the brief pauses between one air-raid siren and the next. Each time, I manage to put Sara back to sleep, just before the chaos begins again.
Like many people in Israel, whenever I hear sirens on a Saturday morning, flashbacks from that historic massacre two and a half years ago rush into my mind. It’s a trauma that will likely accompany our generation forever. Since then, we all understand how fragile our existence here really is, in the land of our ancestors, and that we probably will never truly rest on our laurels. We live by the sword.
And now, after a prolonged two-year war against seven enemies, another round has begun. For me, the difference is enormous. This time, I’m a father to a four-and-a-half-month-old baby girl. Sara was born immediately after the first round ended, right as all the hostages were released from Hamas captivity. Back then, I was responsible only for myself. Today, my life is no longer just my own.
A father, a safe room, and decisions without certainty
Over the past month, as mutual threats between the U.S. and Iran escalated, I moved back into my parents’ home. It wasn’t an easy decision. I agonized endlessly over where would be safest for Sara and me in the event of a missile attack.
My apartment doesn’t have a reinforced safe room, but the building has an excellent underground shelter. My parents’ home has a reinforced safe room, but no shelter. According to the “experts,” accessibility is critical — especially for families with babies — making a safe room preferable. Yes, a shelter may offer slightly better protection, but even it provides no guarantee in the event of a direct hit.
In the end, I made a simple decision as a father: Sara and I would be safer in the safe room at my parents’ house. It was the exact opposite of the choice I made during the previous round of fighting, when I stayed in my own apartment and went down to the shelter whenever needed. Since then, everything has changed. When your life is no longer only yours, convenience stops mattering.
Sara’s first siren
Around eight in the morning, the first siren sounded.
For the first time in her life, Sara was pulled from her crib and carried into a safe room — her first encounter with the impossible Israeli reality we have all come to accept, unwillingly.
My heart was pounding so hard I could actually hear it. I lifted Sara from her crib and carried her into the safe room, where we stayed together with my parents. Fortunately, at her young age, she has no idea what any of this means. For her, it was just another family gathering — this time in a room at Grandma and Grandpa’s house she hadn’t visited yet.
The safe room is small. There isn’t enough space to dance around with her to YouTube videos of children’s heroes, but the three of us did everything we could to make the experience pleasant. Sara stayed in my arms the entire time. And I — more frightened than I’ve ever been — tried to hide it as best I could. She doesn’t need to sense what’s going on inside her father, who is experiencing war for the first time as a parent.
When the Home Front Command issued an all-clear, we left the safe room, fully aware that we’d be returning soon. To avoid waking Sara during the next siren, I moved her bassinet into the safe room. The idea was simple: when the siren sounded, she’d already be protected.
It didn’t work the way we had hoped.
The siren woke her, and she burst into tears. I picked her up immediately until she calmed down.
During that round in the safe room, it was time for her to eat. It was Sara’s first meal there — and in my heart, I knew it probably wouldn’t be her last. Once again, I smiled at her while a storm raged inside me.
Between prayer and disillusionment
“Safe rooms are not protected from a direct hit.”
That sentence plays in my head over and over again. If there were a truly safe place from ballistic missiles, I would be there right now, holding Sara in my arms. In this helplessness, all that remains is prayer.
Sara was born on a Saturday during the intermediate days of Sukkot in 2025.
We were discharged from the hospital on the eve of Simchat Torah — the same joyful day when all the hostages were released, the U.S. president visited Israel, and even addressed the Knesset. On the drive home, my sister and I listened on the radio to the unfolding news of that wonderful day. There was a sense in the air that the wars were behind us, that our enemies had been decisively defeated, and that the future of the Jewish state was secure.
What an incredible time for a two-day-old baby to begin her life as an Israeli citizen. What a perfect time to become a new father.
In my overly vivid imagination, I felt that Sara’s birth heralded a new era — a small dove of peace, a motherless baby bringing redemption to an aging, lonely man in his fifties, and perhaps to an entire people along the way.
Say what you will about my naïveté, but who among us imagined then that we would find ourselves in yet another war — once again, with Iran and its proxies — just months later?
Reality is stronger than imagination. And the reality now is that none of us is truly safe — not even in a protected space. This is the moment for me to rise above my fears and continue pretending that everything is normal, so that Sara’s first war will pass with as little awareness as possible of what’s happening beyond the walls of the safe room.
I will continue to pray for Sara’s safety. In the meantime, I will keep feeding her and putting her to sleep in the safe room, waiting for the boom to come — hoping it will be as far away from us as possible.
As for the idea of “total victory,” I am far less naïve than I once was. I can no longer afford to indulge in empty slogans. Not with Sara in my arms. I am a small person living in a country, and I cannot detach myself from what is happening around me — only hoping that this will indeed be her last war.
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