Together in the Shelter: Dror Israel’s Ongoing Emergency Response

Iranian rockets continue to fly across Israel, and there is still no clear end in sight. Families are spending hours each day running to bomb shelters. Many without in-home protection are sleeping in neighborhood shelters or underground parking garages. Schools remain closed, and only limited programming is permitted within or immediately adjacent to protected spaces.

In this reality, Dror Israel is operating as an educational first responder.

Across the country, our youth movement counselors are running daily Zoom activities to maintain connection and routine. Hundreds of teen leaders, trained over the past two years as “emergency counselors,” are leading games and structured activities for younger children in neighborhood bomb shelters, putting their training into action when it is needed most.

Pre-Army teens running crafts, games and face painting for kids staying in public shelters in Akko.

Our pre-army academy participants have begun formal emergency volunteer deployments, coordinated through the government’s national command center. The teens are traveling to Poriya and a hostel in Tiberias to run activities for evacuated families, and supporting children staying in public shelters in Akko.

In many cities, youth movement members and gap year volunteers have also stepped in to support essential workers. Emergency childcare programs are now operating in protected spaces in communities including Rosh HaAyin, Mazkeret Batya, and Ramat Yishai, allowing doctors, nurses, and other essential staff to continue their work while schools remain closed.

On the very first day of one such childcare program, around 40 children arrived. The importance of the framework became clear almost immediately. As Lior Steinberg, the local youth movement coordinator in Rosh HaAyin, described:“During one of the sirens, a fragment landed not far from us, and I started receiving messages from parents asking if everything was okay. At that exact moment, the children were dancing in the shelter with the counselors.”

Teens from a NOAL youth movement branch are helping to run a day camp, providing crucial child care for essential workers.

In Tel Aviv, programming has begun at the hotel housing families displaced after a direct hit in the city. Purim activities and structured children’s programming are helping restore moments of normalcy amid upheaval.

In a hotel's parking lot, Dror Israel educators run Purim mask making celebrations for evacuated youth in Tel Aviv.

In Carmiel, together with the municipality and local community centers network, our Educators Kibbutz is hosting safe Purim activities inside the shelter of the Nitzanim elementary school, part of our network. More than 100 families registered within hours for a safe space offering sports, games, art, and a place for children to breathe.

The school's shelter was able to host Purim celebrations for Carmiel's youth.

Elsewhere, NOAL volunteers in Ashdod are packing activity kits for shelters across the city, while in Afula youth movement teams are running programs for children who remain in residential boarding schools. In Be’er Sheva, educators and teen leaders are operating the children’s activity space in a hotel hosting evacuated families.

At the same time, we are strengthening our own teams. Dror Israel educators are participating in ongoing Zoom briefings and professional sessions to better understand the evolving security reality and deepen their tools for supporting children experiencing stress and anxiety. These learning sessions will reach educators from Druze, Jewish and Arab communities.

This is not new terrain for us. Years of war and displacement have prepared our educators to respond to the needs of the communities they are embedded in, even in emergencies. Despite fear and heavy restrictions, connection continues. Support continues.

And so do we.