EMERGENCY APPEAL – RENOVATE AND RESTORE INACCESSIBLE COMMUNAL BOMB SHELTERS ACROSS ISRAEL- SAVE LIVES!!

Tens of Thousands of residents in the North of Israel lack access to communal bomb shelters – they need our help today!  In addition to across our country.

Emergency Appeal: Protect 150,000 lives by mobilizing our teams to restore the accessibility to use their communal bomb shelters

Many people around the world have been asking what they can do to show support, and to help save lives and Direct funds to the ground where needed most.

The URGENT Need

Right now, hundreds of thousands of our most vulnerable citizens, including the elderly, Holocaust survivors, women and children, low-income families, and those in the most underprivileged areas across the North and around Israel are terrified in their homes without a protective space, and with no-one to take responsibility for their safety. They have no apartment safe rooms, and their communal bomb shelters are unusable from years of neglect. These shelters are filled with trash, they often contain mold, and they have no access to electricity or running water.

As the war becomes increasingly volatile and dangerous for those in the North of Israel, cleaning and restoring communal bomb shelters is a matter of life and death. In addition to across Israel.

We are working against the clock, and every single hour counts.

Link to donation via credit card (USA) ; Link for donations from Australia ; Link for donations from Canada

Link for donations from the U.K;

Program Structure and Partners

Location: The current cities that we have performed restoration in, opening inaccessible communal bomb shelters for protective use are: Shlomi, Maalot, Nesher, Nof Hagalil, Tiberias, Haifa, Afula, Migdal Haemek, Tirat Hacarmel, Hadera, Kiryat Ata, Kiryat Biyalik, and Kiryat Motzkin. This list is growing daily (for example we already have restoration planned for Tsafed, Nahariya, and Carmiel).

Partners: Osim Shechuna is working in full partnership with the following organizations to mobilize volunteers and operate this program efficiently and in a speedy manner. Partners include: JNF UK, National Emergency agency, Giving Group Community, The Mechinot Council, The Israel Association of Community Centers, Keren Kayemet L’Israel, local municipalities and regional councils, SAHI, Bnei Akiva, and a growing number of youth and young adult programs.  

We have an initial growing list of 1,500 communal bomb shelters, which will continue to grow, which are in desperate need of attention. With your support, over the next few weeks, our mission is to fix and restore 4,500 shelters, utilizing 7,000 volunteers that will provide safety and protection for 160,000 of our brothers and sisters in the North of Israel. The average cost to fix a shelter is $1,000, which covers materials and labor (i.e. tools, paint, electricians, and plumbers to sort out access to water and fix sewage, the cleaning up of mold), and mobilizing and feeding the volunteers who remove the endless amount of trash/storage of old items and perform the repairs, completing the renovation and restoration of the communal bomb shelters.

The North is already under attack. See article: It’s Terrifying: Residents in Israel’s North Brace for Another Possible Front link

Program Impact Update as of 1.29.2024

• Over130,000 residents received a protected and safe space during an emergency.
• Over 33,324 communal bomb shelters have been mapped out for its inaccessibility level.
• Over 4,300 unusable shelters have been restored (cleared, cleaned, painted, etc.)
• Over 2,530 unusable shelters were renovated with professional services (i.e electrician, plumbing, etc.) creating income for small business owners in the North.
• Over 6,900 volunteer workdays in the past 4 weeks with hundreds of volunteers. Including members of the Jewish LA Federation.
• Over 1,500 bomb shelters across Israel are still to be restored in the pipeline- contingent of additional funds and risks in North.
• We are in discussion with Government agencies to allocate budgets to most northern towns. This budget will be mostly used to fix shelters with more complicated and costly problems for professionals (less volunteer driven).

Osim has expanded our focus also to communal bomb shelters in southern towns, such as Ofakim, Netivot, Dimona, Be’er Sheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod and more.

Osim started mapping out and checking shelters in south-central towns such as Kiryat Malachi and Ramle, as well as towns around Ben Gurion Airport, such as Or Yehuda, since these locations suffer many missile attacks.

Current Gap: We have raised closed to $1.75M and have a current gap of $100,000 to restore the number of communal bomb shelters we believe we can renovate at this stage. At that point, we will then reassess before we begin stage 2. Logistically Giving Group Community receives the funds and wires 100% funds received to the Osim Shechuna non profit in Israel, to mobilize the funds immediately.

Restoring Shelters Under Fire

What is a “Communal Bomb Shelter”?

A secure infrastructure to host, in a provisional manner, the populations displaced due to an emergency. In Israel, in most old buildings (build over 30 years ago), the apartments do not have designated safe rooms. Instead, there is usually a dedicated communal shelter on the ground floor.

Across Israel, there are currently 53,000 shared communal bomb shelters, intended to accommodate 3.1 million people. 50% of these bomb shelters are in distressed and underprivileged neighborhoods. When residents do not have access to a usable shelter, they are left huddled in their stairwells, with no way to protect their families or prevent an attack on their lives. The problem is simply too big for cities to manage, and as so many of these residents are vulnerable — they can’t restore these shelters on their own. When the siren sounds, or when terrorists arrive without warning, they end up staying in their homes praying to God that they will survive an attack, or running into the stairway halls where there is only marginally more protection.

Shelters and safe rooms are critical to protect families from both the dangers of being hit by missiles and the arrival of armed terrorists on their doorsteps, sent to murder innocent Jews.

However, after years of disuse, many of these communal bomb shelters are unusable, as they are dangerous, mold-ridden, filled with trash, pitch black without electricity, or experience sewage issues due to poor or non-existent plumbing. Some have been used illegally for storage by people who lock up these communal bomb shelters for their own use and threaten the neighbors not to enter. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!

The problem of unusable bomb shelters falls disproportionately on our most vulnerable citizens, mostly low-income families, the elderly, and those living in old buildings.

Experience

Over the past few years, Osim Shechuna has cleaned out thousands of communal bomb shelters in the South of Israel, saving countless lives. During the last major conflict in 2021, over 8 days, Osim Shechuna gathered 2,000 volunteers across 6 cities, and restored 600 shelters in Ashdod, Be’er Sheva, Petach Tikva, Rishon LeZion and Bat Yam. At one point, a rocket fell in Ashdod, and tenants were protected in a shelter that had been restored just minutes beforehand. As a direct result of this work, 20,000 families now have a protective space to shelter them from the horrors of this war.

You can help us save lives 

We’ve seen first-hand the practical difference that your donations can make in supporting our most vulnerable citizens, and making sure that the next time they hear the siren, they have somewhere safe to go. 

Testimonial

Olga, 77, lives alone in Nof Hagalil, on the second floor, of her building, that doesn’t have safe rooms in the apartments. The Osim Shechuna team arrived at her building on the first week of November, a team of 30 young adults, with endless motivation to do good and show their mutual responsibility for our nation. Upon arrival they knocked on all the apartment doors, to explain the process and invite the neighbors to join the mission, of by end of day, full clean up and restoration of the communal bomb shelter usage, for all 40 residents of the building serving about 14 apartments. At the end of the day, Olga, in tears shared, “I can’t believe my eyes, I was so afraid with the current rocket threats in the North, with nowhere to go to be safe, and within a few hours, these young beautiful souls, come like angels, and created a safe space for all of us in the building, I will always be grateful.”

Please consider a tax deductible donation, via wire, check, credit card, or shares and 100% of funds received will be given to Osim Shechuna, a fully compliant and registered non profit in Israel. 

Link to donation via credit card (USA) ; Link for donations from Australia ; Link for donations from Canada

Link for donations from the U.K;

With volunteers today with Osim Shechuna- making communal shelters accessible for use . Thank you for GGC supporters for getting this project off the ground. Over 4,300 shelters for roughly 130,000 people have been repaired and opened for use

Organization Mission

Osim Shechuna is a Zionist social movement aiming to strengthen the national resilience of the State of Israel by cultivating local leaders tasked with rehabilitating local neighborhoods, improving personal safety on the streets and developing strong communities. Nurturing leadership has a positive snowball effect on distressed neighborhoods by creating a volunteer network to handle social challenges, addressing local needs with municipalities and state leaders, encouraging civic responsibility and improving personal safety.

Tags

At-risk youth | EMERGENCY | Expansion | ISRAEL | ISRAEL AT WAR | Israel | Periphery | Project Targeted