placing bomb shelters in Southern Israel

The ICEJ has recently ordered another 30 new portable bomb shelters to be delivered to Israeli border communities vulnerable to rocket fire from Gaza and Lebanon, with an increased focus on protecting civilians in the northern Galilee and Haifa regions. With these shelters, the ICEJ will have donated a total of 155 portable bomb shelters to Israeli communities under rocket threat, with 129 placed in towns along the Gaza periphery and the remaining 26 in the North.

Focus of Security Assistance Shifting to Rocket Threat in North

Over the past decade, the western Negev has received most of the attention from government and private sources seeking to better protect Israeli civilians from frequent rocket barrages. However, the need for more bomb shelters in the North has become an increasing concern, especially due to Lebanon’s growing economic crisis and Hezbollah’s massive arsenal of over 150,000 rockets. A State Comptroller report issued last year also warned that 2.6 million residents of Northern Israel do not have access to functional bomb shelters.

Thus, the Christian Embassy is shifting its focus to assisting towns in the northern Galilee and Haifa regions. The need for shelters is most acute in the towns along the Lebanese border prone to shorter-range rockets that the Iron Dome system cannot stop. This hilly, forested area contains a diverse mosaic of Jewish, Arab, and Druze towns desperately seeking funding to protect their communities. So over the past year, the ICEJ already has delivered portable shelters to several towns along the northern border.

We have also started placing shelters in another area of concern—the Jewish and Arab farming villages in the Zevulun regional council just east of Haifa. These towns are close to oil storage tanks and chemical plants near Haifa Bay, which Hezbollah will likely target in any future conflict. In the coming months, we plan to deliver new shelters to public places in this area, as well as in Haifa, Akko, Nahariya, Kfar Maccabi, and elsewhere—all in consultation with local security chiefs.

Most of the donations for these latest bomb shelters have come from Christians in Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Fiji, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Please consider a generous gift toward the ICEJ’s efforts to better protect Israelis living under the constant threat of rocket attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah. You may do so by giving through our Israel in Crisis fund.