Tel Aviv, June 18, 2025 \u2014 As air raid sirens blared across Israel on Friday amid fears of an Iranian missile strike, panic swept through neighborhoods and residents rushed toward designated bomb shelters. But for 29-year-old Samar Al-Rasheed, a Palestinian woman raising her five-year-old daughter alone near Acre, the rush to safety became a moment of discrimination and exclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Samar, whose neighbors in the apartment complex are mostly Jewish Israelis, recalled grabbing her daughter Jihan, their phones, and a bottle of water as the warning sirens pierced the air. Like other residents, she headed for the building’s underground shelter. \u201cI didn\u2019t have time to gather much,\u201d she said. \u201cI just held my daughter\u2019s hand and ran.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite her fear, Samar tried to remain calm for her daughter\u2019s sake, gently urging her along in Arabic as they hurried down the stairs with other residents. But just before reaching the entrance to the shelter, an Israeli neighbor blocked their path. \u201cHe heard me speaking Arabic,\u201d Samar said. \u201cHe looked at me with hatred and slammed the door shut in our face, saying, \u2018This is not for you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Samar, who is fluent in Hebrew, tried to explain, but the man refused to listen. \u201cAt that moment,\u201d she recalled, \u201cthe deep divides in Israeli society were painfully clear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With nowhere to turn, Samar took her daughter back up the stairs to their apartment. As they climbed, the sky outside lit up with the flashes of explosions\u2014interceptor missiles destroying incoming threats overhead, with some crashing to the ground. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just the rockets that scared me,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was also the way people treated us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scenes of overcrowded shelters have become common across Israel in recent days. Older buildings often lack bunkers, forcing residents to crowd into public shelters or stairwells. In cities like Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, staircases have turned into makeshift sleeping quarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yakov Shemesh, a 74-year-old retired social worker in West Jerusalem, said his wife has been sleeping in the stairwell of their apartment building since the missile alerts began. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a shelter,\u201d he explained. \u201cOn Sunday night, I went up to the roof to see what was happening. I saw bright flashes in the sky and then loud explosions. But the news didn\u2019t report it. Maybe the state doesn\u2019t want us to know how close it really was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As regional tensions escalate and the threat of missile attacks persists, Samar\u2019s experience has sparked renewed concern over the treatment of Palestinian citizens during national emergencies. Her story is a stark reminder that, even amid shared dangers, divisions can run deep \u2014 and not all lives are treated equally when sirens sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A news by Alisha Pradhan, General Secretary, HerNet Foundation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tel Aviv, June 18, 2025 \u2014 As air raid sirens blared across Israel on Friday amid fears of an Iranian missile strike, panic swept through neighborhoods and residents rushed toward designated bomb shelters. But for 29-year-old Samar Al-Rasheed, a Palestinian woman raising her five-year-old daughter alone near Acre, the rush to safety became a moment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6277"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7605,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6277\/revisions\/7605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}