Israel at War – Thoughts From Martin Kessel and Gail Robinson
On June 6, Gail and I returned from a five week stay in Israel. Hard to believe that in the short space of time since then, Israel has declared war and a ceasefire on Iran. And now a fragile cease-fire between Israel and Iran has begun.
Kessel Family at a Shabbat retreat at Kibbutz Kalia, on the shores of the Dead Sea
We will purposely not get into the politics, both global and internally to Israel; but rather, describe some of our personal experiences during our stay and since then.
When we visit Israel, Martin has a position as a Visiting Scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, about 20 miles south of Tel Aviv. During our stay, we are housed in a very comfortable apartment on the beautiful Weizmann campus.
We arrived in Israel on May 1st. The very next night (3am!), we experienced our first air raid siren caused by an in incoming missile fired by the Houtis from Southern Yemen about 1,300 miles from Israel.
These missile firings were usually landed around 3-4am, which meant being rudely woken up and walking quickly for about 2 minutes to our public shelter. We would stay in the shelter for at least ten minutes to be sure there was no shrapnel fragments falling from the missile interceptor. Over 90% of incoming missiles are intercepted. The 10% percent that get through have caused severe damage. After that interruption it was usually difficult to go back to sleep. Gail noticed after our first night that fewer residents were coming to the shelter. They became complacent and stayed in their apartments. Gail and I were much too worried not to go to the shelter. During our stay at Weizmann, we experienced about 10 more missile alerts out of some 60 missiles Yemen shot at Israel during that time.
We are now back in the US which, on June 13, began with Israel in deciding to engage Iran in a series of major bombing attacks to degrade their missile launch capabilities. In addition, a major objective was to degrade as much as possible their nuclear program both through bombing and the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. This culminated in the US entering the war to use B-2 bombers in an attempt to destroy the three main Iranian nuclear facilities.
Once Israel began experiencing missile attacks from Iran it immediately became clear that because of their significantly larger payload, any damage from these missiles would be much more serious than anything encountered before. Israelis were now confronted with scenes of whole sections of high-rise apartment buildings being destroyed resulting in enormous damage, including shattered glass and broken door and window frames resulting from the bomb blast. Israelis also learned very quickly to react immediately to the warnings by the IDF Home Front Command to seek shelter in a safe room or public shelter. It immediately became apparent that people in shelters were not injured at all or only lightly whereas those who did not reach shelters were unfortunately either killed or sustained serious injuries.
The Ullman Building at Weizmann Institute, above, housed Dr. Professor Oren Schuldiner’s lab. Source: sciencebusiness.net
On the second day of the war, June 15, the Weizmann Institute of Science sustained two direct missile hits on large laboratory buildings on the campus. The damage was enormous, resulting in the loss of major research projects years in the making. Much of this has already been documented but I would like to relate briefly the story of Professor Oren Schuldiner, whose lab was totally destroyed. Oren's field of study is neuronal remodeling, and pivotal to his research is the use of fruit fly genetics. All of Oren's fruit fly colonies bred over many years were destroyed.
Oren has been a friend of my son Allon since they were at school together. Oren’s father, Shimon Schuldiner a Prof. of Molecular Biology at the Hebrew University and I have been colleagues for over 50 years. Despite facing this very difficult situation Oren and his lab of post-docs, graduate students and lab technicians will rebuild their lab however long that takes. (1)
At Weizmann I am in close contact with colleagues who use the electron microscope in their fields of research. The laboratory infrastructure housing some of these microscopes was damaged in the missile attack
In total 550 missiles and 1000 drones were fired at Israel with 31 impacts in populated areas.
However hard it will be to rebuild the Weizman labs, the real damage from the many missile attacks by Iran has resulted in 28 people reported to have been killed, and 3000 wounded, 23 seriously and 111 moderately. Some 240 residential buildings (about 2000 individual apartments), were damaged resulting in more than 9000 people, displaced throughout Israel, whose apartments have been destroyed beyond repair. Temporary accommodation has been provided but there is a long way back for all the families and individuals directly affected. (2)
We were fortunate not to be in Israel for this period but our family comprising of six households is there. While we were there, we had a wonderful time visiting with the family and already look forward to our future visits.
2. https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-israel-iran-war-by-the-numbers-after-12-days-of-fighting/amp/