Word: kibbutz
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...middle-aged man from another kibbutz near the border was just killed by Palestinian mortar fire. Here in Hanita, the bomb shelters have been packed most nights during the past week; the youngest children are always the first to be rushed to the shelters when an attack is expected. Yet the Israelis who live here seem detached and almost oblivious to the dangers. By now, they have grown used to the violence; it is a part of their daily lives...
Late in the night I am wakened by a tremendous explosion from a Palestinian rocket landing nearby. It shakes the windows of most of the buildings in the kibbutz. I have never been so terrified in my life. For the first time, some of the Israelis are getting scared...
...kibbutz leaders have turned off all the lights in order to make it harder for the Palestinian gunners to find us. A middle-aged German Jew, especially frightened because he has lived through such nightmares before, fears that PLO terrorists could sneak into the kibbutz during the night and massacre us as we huddle in the shelters. He decides to stand guard outside the shelter for most of the night...
Inside, the bomb shelter is a grey hulk of cement and steel. A hole in the ground serves as the toilet. There are about 30 of us crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in our sleeping bags and blankets on the cold, concrete floor. The kibbutz leaders intended to build bunk beds in this shelter, but since the outbreak of the war they have concentrated instead on building several additional new shelters. When we are all squeezed in, someone locks the two ten-inch thick steel doors that are supposed to protect us from the outside world...
Most of the people on the kibbutz are weak and tired this morning because of last night's attack, but everyone tries to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary has happened. In a way, nothing has. The battle was business as usual. Obviously, the kibbutzniks are fighting a psychological as well as a military war with the Palestinians...