Home Front Command alerts often signal more than the approaching siren. They can also mark the return of disputes and tensions inside public bomb shelters.
“A neighbor who takes over the building’s shelter, passersby that residents argue about whether to let inside, a neighbor who comes down with a dog and scares the small children,” said Noa Shalev, listing the most common conflicts she has encountered since the start of Operation Roaring Lion.
Conflict mediation is Shalev’s area of expertise. She manages the Gishurim mediation program operated by the nonprofit organization Mosaica for the Welfare Ministry. “When there is already an underlying conflict, whether between neighbors or within a family, war only intensifies it,” she explained. “Whatever was already on the edge gets pushed even further.”
Under normal circumstances, the program, based on a model imported from the U.S. about 20 years ago, operates in 80 municipalities across Israel. It offers mediation services wherever disputes arise in public spaces or within families.
The program relies on about 1,600 volunteer mediators who have undergone professional training. Referrals to mediation centers can be made independently or through outside bodies such as municipal social services departments, the police and sometimes the courts.
Now, amid the war with Iran, the program is operating in an emergency format. A hotline has been set up for anyone seeking mediation due to tensions stemming from the situation, particularly in public shelters. “We are not the police, who come in and make a ruling,” Shalev said. “We use tools that help build trust and restore a sense of control over people’s lives.”
During Operation Rising Lion, mediators from the program managed to bring a measure of calm and neighborly cooperation to a large public shelter in central Israel. They also intervened in a building where neighbors had been locked in a long-running dispute.
“There is something in the mediation process that helps people and, in a way, touches their hearts,” Shalev concluded.