JERUSALEM — Here in Israel, our relationship with the sky has changed.
On an ordinary night in Jerusalem, it’s possible to look up from my quiet rooftop at the stars and appreciate the way they remain peaceful and unchanging no matter what’s happening on the ground. But right now, the sky hisses and roars with Israeli jets flying to and from targets in Iran; it hums with the sound of what may be Iranian suicide drones, or may be a neighbor’s air conditioner. You hear the pop of interceptor rockets launching from batteries outside the city, the thump of aerial interceptions or the sickening thud of distant impacts on the coastal plain to the west. At any moment something can hurtle down from the sky and explode.
Hours before dawn this morning the sky came alive with orange streaks from the northeast—the latest Iranian missile barrage headed toward population centers around Tel Aviv and Haifa. Then came the red dots of Israeli interceptors rising toward the intruders. There were two bright puffs of light before our own air-raid siren went off and I returned to the safe room to wait it out with my wife, kids, and a neighbor from downstairs. (I’m finishing these lines in the same room, where we’ve been sent by another siren on Sunday afternoon.)