Hi,
I have read the article in the morning about the kill of Islamic Jihad commander and rush to ask Fatma and her fiance how was their night. In my mind it is just another round of fighting in the south.
I went out to catch the train to the factory, which, although in the south, is probably most safe from to be in, and I have open my whatsapp. Apparently Jannaeus has no kindergarten today, a couple of minutes later I get a massage that also Mindal has no nursery toady.
Both of them are for the same reason, the rocket already got to Central Israel. Kindergarten without a Protected space (Merkhav Mugan) are closed. Not that we have one at of those spaces at home, not a Mamad in our apartment, and not a shelter in our building, and not a public shelter in a running distance.
I picked up my cellphone to call Atzva and arrange ourselves what we going to do with the kids. When Atzva answers she is a bit more dramatic: “Do you know there is war?!”.
“Yes” I said, but I really mean – I didn’t understand how bad is the situation.
“I am going to approve a cast in the factory and I am coming back right away”. As Atzva said, the cast was cancelled and I went back home. And “No, my Ima will not come here when there is war”, again Atzva is right.
Now – to the other kids, the workers in Tel Aviv branch of our office. Some of them are coming from the south, some live in Tel-Aviv. Our building does not a shelter or other kind of Protected space, but…. It used to be a bank. And in the bank they have a safe – That can probably be used as a Protected and space place 
First, when Israel was established as a state, the protected space was usually a public shelters, buried underneath couple of meters of soil. It used to serve couple of buildings. Later when construction costs went lower, each residential building used to have its own shelter. When the building went taller, and after it those basements shelter proved not to efficient during the rockets attacks of 1991 Gulf war, Mamad were built. Those are a room inside an apartment with thicker walls and slab (and extra reinforcement), built as a tower in building.
Those Mamad rooms (an acronym in Hebrew for an Apartment Protected Space), are really a problem when you come to design tall building for earthquakes. They stiffen the building, enlarge seismic forces, whichin turn result in thicker walls with more reinforcement. But this is for a different post…
Take care
Gad
The safe at the basement at the work place
Iron dome Interception in the sky of Tel Aviv – today at 7:00 at Tel-Aviv HaHagan train station
The announcements at the train station of Red Alert and the instructions