Expert Analysis
Last month while at dinner with colleagues, I heard the news that Israel launched a preemptive strike against Iran over its nuclear weapons program. Immediately, a thousand thoughts rushed into my mind. First, my thoughts were with the Israeli military, hoping they would be successful setting back Iran’s nuclear program. Secondly, knowing Iran would retaliate, I prayed for the safety of all Israeli citizens, particularly friends. Israeli citizens were going to spend the foreseeable future running into bomb shelters and I hoped for the best.
Over the next several days, as events unfolded, I started thinking about older adults living in the region. I wondered how seniors are expected to rush into bomb shelters, especially those with mobility issues. I remember my grandparents in their later years and the effort it took to simply walk down the hall. Getting off the couch was no easy task. In Israel, you often have just 90 seconds to get into a shelter. Under no set of circumstances could my grandparents have made it into a shelter in 90 seconds.
It’s not just my grandparents which made me think of Israeli seniors. At B’nai B’rith, we sponsor Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) senior housing across the country. In 2024, Israel’s population aged 65 and over was 1.2 million people. Getting these older adults to safety during emergencies represents a significant challenge.
A recent Times of Israel article titled “Under Iran’s ‘blitz’ Israel’s retirement homes try to keep calm and carry on” reported how senior facilities are handling this matter. The Neve Horim home is a nursing home with 200 residents, most of which are in wheelchairs. Avituv Zelkin the facility’s CEO, said, “When there is an alarm at night, we don’t wake the residents up.” Zlekin further explained, “The safety protocol is to ensure that residents are in the safest space there is. Imagine moving all these people in wheelchairs to the shelter downstairs when we are not allowed to use the elevators during a siren. So we let them continue sleeping.”
During the daytime residents in wheelchairs are moved away from the windows and the people who can get into a shelter do so. In addition, the windows have been treated not to shatter inwards, and the nursing facility has enough food, medicine and supplies to last two weeks.
This problem also extends to affordable housing in Israel. In Jewish News article “Israeli seniors need updated safe rooms, says Amigour CEO,” the organization—which operates 56 low-income senior housing facilities as a subsidiary of the Jewish Agency for Israel—discusses these safety challenges.” Amigour is a subsidiary of the Jewish Agency for Israel and operates 56 low-income senior housing facilities.
Amigour housing stock that was built in the 1960s and 70s were constructed without safe rooms. This was a time when missile attacks on civil populations were not contemplated. In the article Amigour CEO Erez Shani tells the Jewish News “Our elderly basically have less than 40 seconds to go into the bomb shelter, which is underground, and if you’re 80—the average age in our homes is 81—you don’t have time to go down.” As of December, Amigour has been working on raising funds to build safe rooms at eight of their buildings. According to Shani, the goal of the project is to construct safe rooms right outside the resident’s door on the other side of the corridor. These facilities can take seven to eight months to complete.
As for the rest of Israel, in 1992, because of the Gulf War, Israel now requires new residential and industrial buildings to have safe rooms, including every floor of apartment buildings and hotels. The shift here was to provide greater accessibility, going from communal to private in-home shelters. Obviously, this doesn’t account for buildings created prior to 1992, where the IDF encourages people without an accessible safe room to stay in stairwells or rooms without windows.
Across Israel, the government is building more shelters. The Defense Ministry and Home Front Command have plans to create 1,000 more public bomb shelters and improve 500 existing shelters. These additional shelters are needed because according to the Builder’s Association 57% of Israel homes do not have a safe room. Also, the BBC reports that about a quarter of Israelis don’t have access to shelters.
While I hope Israelis will never have to use safe rooms again, I am not naïve. Last month, Israel faced an onslaught of missiles from Iran that hit civilian populations. I hope Iran stops its weapons program and charts a path towards peace with Israel. However, hoping for peace is a far cry from achieving it, and I fear a peaceful Iran is not in our immediate future. In the meantime, let’s hope Israel can marshal its resources to ensure everyone has access to a shelter should the need arise.
Evan Carmen, Esq. is the Legislative Director for Aging Policy at the B’nai B’rith International Center for Senior Services. Click here to read more from Evan Carmen.