Waiting for the drones: Israelis describe fearful hours in lead up to Iranian drone attack

• Published date: 14 April 2024
• Author: EVE YOUNG
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Jerusalem resident Marne Rochester dealt with the fear surrounding the attack and its lead-up with dark humor. The news of incoming drones from Iran was "material for more memes," she said. Memes have been part of Rochester's coping through humor, and she joked in a Facebook meme that the drones will take hours to arrive and "they should have sent [them] via DHL instead of Israel Post

While Rochester was determined not to "panic prematurely," in the lead-up to the attack, which was rife with conflicting reports about when an attack might happen and what it might look like, she was prepared Saturday night, with her robe by the door and a bag full of snacks. Rochester, like many Jerusalem residents, does not have a safe room in her apartment and spends her time sheltering in the stairwell. Her building does have a bomb shelter, but most of the residents of Rochester's building prefer to stay in the stairwell, near their apartments.

Rochester didn't go to sleep before the sirens and sounds of the explosion that rocked Jerusalem in the early hours of Sunday morning. She also didn't go to sleep for hours after, staying up watching the news. "Around 4 a.m., I saw that nothing was going to change, and started getting tired," she said, explaining that that is when she went to bed.

"It was pretty funny that some of the commentators on the news programs were telling people to go to sleep," she said. "I felt like they were all being Jewish mothers telling me to get some sleep. They were saying 'Don't hurt yourself, don't run, you have time, walk to your shelter.'"

Things already started to feel normal on Sunday during the day, explained Rochester. "You have the initial shock and then it's like, ok back to normal," said Rochester, explaining that she made aliyah right before the Gulf War. "I get a little nervous, but I've also done this before."

Israelis describe an array of experiences from Iran's drone attack

"Israelis, for better or for worse, know how to deal with war," she said. Rochester has seen several Israeli flags on cars and plans to put one on her car today. "Even when we are under attack, we are proud to be Israeli, and we're going to survive this. As Golda Meir said: 'We have no place to go.'"

Jerusalem resident Ittay Flescher had been following the news leading up to the attack for days, but says that at first, an Iran attack "was the subject of jokes and memes." People said things like "we don't need to [clean for Passover]," or hoped that "Iran...