The last few days things have been heating up with bigger rockets coming out of Gaza.

Until recently cities in the more south of Israel, like Sderot, Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beer Sheva, were being hit with around 1 million people needing to regularly go into bomb shelters.

Now, longer range missiles hit Tel Aviv yesterday, landed on grass, no damage.   This is unusual as the regular GRAD missiles can reach a maximum of 40Km, so these are a different breed of weapon.

Today after I went home from work, an alarm sounded at about 16:45 – Jerusalem just had its first rocket attack in a long time.

After just getting on my shoes, coat and keys, me and my room mate ran downstairs to see most people hovering on the stairs that go into the basement where a large heavy door that has our bomb shelter is.

Having a bomb shelter is a legal requirement for all homes and businesses here.

Not many of my neighbours came in actually.   There were Ethiopian Jews, Russian Jews, one British lady and the rest of our block I think are sabra Israelis.  I have not seen on my neighbours together so this brought out a community spirit.  The elderly Ethiopian lady in her traditional clothing look noticeably in tears.

Across the road are two houses with Arab families which will having to deal this threat as well.   Something the mainstream news never really mentions.

This large room has some of other peoples stuff here, and someone painted some cartoon pictures on the wall, which actually makes the place look worse, like some kind of communist era prison.   This is an awful place to be, it feels like a prison and the toilets are grim, and a water tank is empty.  Actually I have to bring back some bottles of water which have to keep handy for disaster planning reasons.

I didn’t hear any explosions but there were some (maybe 2 or 3) from the west part of the city which friends told me online.

As today is Shabbat, the holiest day for Jewish people, this is a deliberate effort to frighten and worry people in the most holy city on earth.   There is a worry more attacks could happen (Saturday, the remaining part of Shabbat)   but we need to keep praying for safety and for a swift end to this war.   I know civilians in Gaza are no doubt going to be also stuck in the middle of this with possibly tragic consequences.

I have no desire to leave back to the UK, nor does anyone I know out of the three dozen Christian ministries I know that is here, we will continue to help this nation by prayer and in physical assistance.