Nights of sirens: Life under fire in Jerusalem

By AUDREY LYNN LEINOFF MARCH 23, 2026 16:49 Updated: MARCH 23, 2026 18:04 It was cold, it was dark, and I was sitting alone in the middle of a stairwell on a lower floor in my apartment building in Jerusalem, for I could not remember how many times that day already. What day was it anyway, I wondered? Saturday, Sunday? Or maybe just that witching hour found in the middle of all nights that is always accompanied by an unbridled sense of dread. And how many days have passed since Operation Roaring Lion began? Was it three, four, or five? In my dazed state after waking to the unearthly screeching sound of yet another Home Front Command missile alert on my phone, it was hard to tell. But I had bigger problems at the moment, I reminded myself in the deadly silence that followed; survival would be a good one to fixate on, for instance. Unlike most of my friends, some of them in southern Israel, most in the Gush Dan region, my housing complex has no bomb shelter. That is why I keep dragging my carcass down two flights of stairs, where I mercilessly plump my protesting backside down
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