Israel 2019 – Day 6, Avoiding Missiles and Apollonia

November 12, 2019

This is the day that Islamic Jihadists fired missiles at Israel from the Gaza Strip. That changed some plans for today.

To start off the day, I had coffee with TJ before he went off to work. My game plan was to go for a run and run to Apollonia, which is an old Crusader fort and Phoenician town about 1.5 miles away from TJ’s house. 

Around 7:30AM, TJ calls home from work and told us to put on the news.

The long story short is… Israel killed a major Jihadist leader early in the morning with a precision air strike. This caused the Jihadists to retaliate by firing a barrage of missiles targeting different areas of southern Israel throughout the morning. Thankfully, Israel’s missile defense system, the “Iron Dome”, proved pretty effective at stopping incoming missiles from actually hitting their targets.

Our original game plan was for TJ to show me Tel Aviv and Jaffa, especially some of the markets and churches she frequents. But since missiles were targeting those areas, we opted not to go.

I still wanted to go to Apollonia, and hence I still went for a run. Because we were trying to stay on top of the missile news for a little bit, I ended up leaving later in the morning. This made for a rather warm run.

Apollonia

Back in the day, Apollonia was a small, decent-sized town at a cliff edge by the sea. It had a bit of a rough history as inhabitants exchanged a few times depending on who ruled at the time. The last major thing that happened to Apollonia was during the Crusades when Crusaders fortified the town. The Muslims laid siege to the city for 40 days before it fell.

These days, you can see the dry moat and remnants of the fort and fortified city. It’s not that big of a place, so I only spent about an hour here. 

To get back to TJ’s house, I opted to go walk the beach. Awkwardly, I missed the stairs to go down towards the beach, and ended up in a mosque’s cemetery. Whoops!

When I returned, TJ and I went to grab a quick bite at the nearby strip mall and one of the cafes.

Bomb Shelter Prep

TJ has a shelter in their rental house. They’ve been primarily using it as storage both for themselves and for the landlord. Because of all the missile threats, TJ thought it would be a good idea to at least begin to prep the shelter to make it habitable if necessary.

I helped TJ clear some of it out to wipe it down, dust it, and vacuum it. And that took the better part of the late morning and early afternoon.

TJ came home early from work. They were released early because of the missile threat and to avoid traffic.

Being Social Despite Being Sheltered

At about mid-afternoon, we went next door so that TJ could introduce me to their Filipina neighbor. We sat and chatted for a little while. It was cool hearing other perspectives on what it’s like living in Israel.

In the evening, we ventured out to grab dinner at a local favorite cafe. And after dinner, we had game night! I learned how to play Farkle and King’s Corner for the first time ^_^

During the games, we talked about possibly going to Masada/Dead Sea tomorrow depending on the missile situation. And TJ was planning on taking off work.

Current Stats

Total Cost So Far = $527.24

Again, splitting the cost of lunch and dinner at ~$7 and ~$20 respectively.

Lessons Learned

Israel has some hostile neighbors (or rather…neighbors who host hostiles). No wonder the country’s security measures seem pretty extreme. The Israel Defense Force (IDF) has a mobile app that I downloaded in order to receive warnings and notifications of missiles so that people have a chance to take cover. For us in north Tel Aviv, the average time between sirens going off and impact is about 1.5 minutes.Thankfully, I didn’t receive anything, but the news continued to report more missile firings. While missile threats are perhaps constant, it is good to know when to actually care. And where to go.

The app is called “Home Front Command” and is available in both the Google Play store and App Store.

What would you do when there are missiles flying overhead?

Navigate to other days:

• Day 0: Preparations and Initial Thoughts
• Day 1: Going MAD
• Day 2: Subway Struggling in Madrid
• Day 3: The Fastest and the Slowest
• Day 4: Up In the North
• Prev> Day 5: A Day At the Beach
• Next> Day 7: Let’s Avoid More Missiles Today
• Day 8: One Last Time Before Leaving
• Day 9: A Fly Way To End It