The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem is in the process of delivering 36 new portable bomb shelters to Israeli border communities particularly vulnerable to rocket and mortar fire from Gaza and Lebanon. The funds have been raised from Christians worldwide in the past six months since Israel's latest military conflict with terrorist factions in the Gaza Strip.
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With this development, the ICEJ has now donated a total of 161 portable bomb shelters to Israeli communities under rocket threat since 2008 with the majority (130) placed in towns along the Gaza periphery in the south and the remaining ones deployed in the north.
In the past decade, the western Negev region has received most of the attention from government and private bodies seeking to better protect the local civilian population from frequent rocket barrages. Working in partnership with "Operation Lifeshield," the Christian Embassy has placed dozens of mobile bomb shelters in communities in the Gaza envelope, stretching from Kerem Shalom in the south all the way up through Sderot and Ashkelon.
Most have been donated to schools, daycare centers, medical clinics, youth centers, community centers, university campuses, factories and other public places that cannot operate during times of crisis without adequate bomb shelters.
Yet the need for additional bomb shelters in the north has become more apparent due to the growing economic crisis and domestic instability in Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah has a massive arsenal of missiles.
A State Comptroller report issued last year warned that 2.6 million residents of northern Israel do not have access to functional bomb shelters. While efforts have been made to upgrade existing shelters, the state budget has provided little funding to add new and better ones, due in part to the political and budgetary deadlock in recent years and the priority given to resupplying the IDF's Iron Dome batteries, the report concluded.
'Give their families peace of mind'
To that end, the Christian Embassy is delivering some of its 36 new shelters to public places in Haifa, Acre, Kfar Maccabi and elsewhere in consultation with local authorities, security chiefs and social agencies. Two new bomb shelters were delivered and dedicated on Nov. 23 at the Israel Tennis Center facilities in Acre, which teaches tennis and other sports to Jewish and Arab youths from disadvantaged families.
In recent weeks, the ICEJ has delivered bomb shelters to several Jewish and Arab communities in the Zevulun region, as well as to kibbutzim and moshavim along the Gaza border. This includes Kibbutz Usha; Kibbutz Nahal Oz; Kibbutz Or HaNer; Kibbutz Bror Hayil; Kibbutz Nir Am; and Moshav Mivtahim.
Since the 11-day conflict in May with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, the ICEJ has received donations for new bomb shelters from Christians in dozens of countries, most notably from Brazil, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Fiji, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
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"Many Israelis living along the Gaza border have told us that these mobile bomb shelters indeed save lives and give their families the peace of mind they need to continue their daily lives under the constant threat of rocket attacks," said Dr. Jürgen Bühler, president of ICEJ.
"We now want to focus more on the need for additional bomb shelters to protect civilians in the north. The existing public shelters are not enough, and these portable shelters are an effective way to provide greater security to the smaller towns and villages in the Galilee and Haifa regions that are often overlooked," he said.
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
