If the IDF fights on, where are the jets?
Sometimes a good balcony view reveals more than the most sophisticated radar system. People living near the Tel Nof airbase south of Rechovot — the Israeli Air Force’s main base, and its largest — can gauge the security situation based on noise pollution levels on Shabbos, Yom Tov, and late at night.
A Tel Nof neighbor and retired F-16 squadron commander, MK Matan Kahana, once gave me a tip for distinguishing nighttime IAF training from emergency missions: Training flights are scheduled as early in the evening as possible, to enable pilots to make it home in time for dinner.
But if you hear jets roaring after ten at night, or during Shabbos and Yom Tov, that indicates an operational mission. And the more deafening the noise, the heavier the munitions the aircraft are likely loaded with. So the relative quiet around Tel Nof over the past three weeks is significant.
At 6:30 a.m. on Simchas Torah, we woke up to three continuous hours of sirens, impacts, and interceptions — no coffee breaks. We would later learn that the massive barrages fired in the direction of Tel Nof, the airbase closest to Gaza, were intended to disrupt the takeoff of warplanes and delay the IAF response.
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