Back to School, Back to Safety

New bomb shelters have been completed in half a dozen day care centers just in time for the new school year.

Just in time for the new school year beginning September 1st, with the help of very generous donations from our federations, WIZO’s building division has successfully fast-tracked the building of seven new bomb shelters in our day care centers. The newly constructed shelters are a result of an international campaign that WIZO launched in March to add bomb shelters in 12 WIZO day care centers to ensure the safety of over 1,000 babies, toddlers and professional staff.

These bomb shelters are critical to easing the fears and anxiety of parents and children, minimizing the disruption of routine life, enabling parents to work in times of emergency and enhancing WIZO’s day care centers, making them more attractive and competitive to parents. Our partners in the WIZO federations around the world understood the urgency of this need and immediately mobilized to provide the funding for many of these bomb shelters.

The new shelters are being designed as colorful and engaging sensory-motor rooms so as to maximize safety as well as provide a fun, educational space that enhances child development all year around. WIZO federations have contributed funds to this aspect as well.

The completed bomb shelters are:

• Saranga DCC in Rehovot funded by WIZO Brazil
• Jesse Cohen DCC in Holon funded by WIZO Brazil
• Herzliya Neve Israel DCC funded by WIZO Brazil
• Herzliya Shaviv DCC funded by WIZO Brazil
• Tel Aviv-Yafo Beit Porg funded by WIZO France and additional donations from the Iron Swords campaign
• Tel Giborim in Holon, two bomb shelters, funded by WIZO France

In addition to building entirely new structures, we have also renovated bomb shelters in 25 day care centers: painted, replaced doors, installed air conditioning, and repaired walls and brought them up to standard. There are still quite a few day care centers that are in need of new bomb shelters and we are working to obtain funding and permits to build them as quickly as possible.

Here is a short video describing this critical gap.

An Ongoing Threat

Since the beginning of the Iron Swords War, at least 15,000 rockets, mortars, drones, and other deadly projectiles have been fired at Israel from all fronts combined.

Although most of these rockets were intercepted by Iron Dome, the constant threat of missile attacks presents a grave danger to Israeli civilian life, greatly disrupting life for millions of Israelis in the south, center and north of the country.

As tensions in the north of Israel continue to escalate, the Jihadist Islamic Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon poses the most serious threat.

Hezbollah is the world’s most heavily armed non-state actor, and has been described as “a militia trained like an army and equipped like a state.” This is especially true with regard to its missile and rockets, which Hezbollah has in vast quantities.

Hezbollah’s arsenal is estimated at up to 150,000 missiles, vastly more accurate than those fired by Hamas from Gaza. In such a catastrophic situation, hundreds, possibly thousands of rockets are likely to make direct hits in towns and cities throughout Israel.

Such a nightmare scenario has become a significant likelihood: A full-scale war with Hezbollah could begin today or next month. In the face of such a threat, WIZO is determined to protect all of our children and educational staff in every single day care center.

Most of WIZO’s 165 day care centers have bomb shelters that provide adequate protection in the case of rocket attacks. However, we identified 12 day care centers, located in vulnerable geographic areas, that had insufficient shelters – or none at all. During the first few weeks of the Gaza war, the IDF Home Front Command authorized WIZO to open day care centers only when there were sufficient shelters. The result was that thousands of children were forced to stay home, and their parents could not go to work, causing great disruption and hardship. WIZO was also directly affected: with thousands of children at home, our revenue was severely reduced, by millions of shekels.

As the rocket threat from Gaza receded, we were able to open almost all our DCCs. The centers with insufficient shelters will be shut down immediately with a renewal of a threat – especially from Hezbollah in the north. And now, as the new school year begins, we must ensure that all day care centers are equipped with sufficient bomb shelter facilities. We still need your help! 

To donate to WIZO, please visit our DONATION page.