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As the West Asia war enters Day 20, India Today's Sweta Singh speaks to stranded Indians about how they are surviving in Israel amid escalating missile and drone attacks from Iran.

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00:00Today, Shweta Singh interacted with Indians living in Israel who have been shifted to bomb shelters.
00:41When asked about Israeli government's preparedness during the attacks, this is what they said.
01:14Shweta, we just saw that ground report of yours where an Indian quite confidently actually talks about what the entire
01:22infrastructure is and what these bomb shelters really look like.
01:25I want to understand from you, it's day 20 of the war. How long do you think people are prepared
01:30to stay in bunkers like these? What's the mindset like on the ground?
01:35So, Sunil, in Israel, there are houses which have one room as a bunker, built as a bunker.
01:41Now, all the modern houses are being made in such a way that whichever floor your house is on, you
01:48have a bunker inside the house.
01:51Obviously, they won't be able to live in a bunker while they get certain things there, which will help them
01:56in sustaining if they have to stay locked in for a long time.
02:01Otherwise, it's the entire house and one bunker inside that.
02:04And in places where houses do not have bunkers, there are community bunkers, community bomb shelters, which help the Israelis.
02:13So, even when I filed a report, Sunil, where I spoke about how Iran developed technology that made missiles, it
02:25built a whole missile city, whereas Israel was making bomb shelter and air defense for its citizens.
02:34So, for a country which has a strong air defense and a strong infrastructure for bomb shelters, I mean, of
02:46course, people get exasperated, people get exhausted when repetitively the sirens sound out all through the night after every half
02:54hour to one hour.
02:55But at the same time, they know Israel is a country permanently at war with any one of its neighbors,
03:03any one of the organizations, which they call the proxies of Iran.
03:09So, in Israel, at least, that is the situation.
03:13And Shwita, you're saying every half an hour to an hour is when the sirens blow up.
03:18You're saying people are absolutely comfortable with living in that reality.
03:22Has it escalated from what we are seeing at the moment, globally, the pictures coming to us?
03:27It seems like day 20 has been a massive escalation.
03:30Are you feeling that there?
03:32So, the frequency of the alarms has gone down, if I might say.
03:39Iran has been relying more on damaging Israel with cluster bombs, not with the ballistic missiles.
03:47Now, cluster bombs are definitely designed in a way that it will harm the citizens more than probably a military
03:54infrastructure, headquarters or anything.
03:57So, it is a bomb that actually creates a lot of terror.
04:03It is not banned and spoken of in those terms for any other reason.
04:09So, that is one tension because parts of the cluster bomb also escape the air defense.
04:19And that is why in Israel this time, Sunil I was here when the 2023, 7th October attacks happened.
04:26After that, rockets were fired from Hamas.
04:29And when rockets are fired, you have anywhere from between 60 seconds to 90 seconds to actually rush to a
04:36bomb shelter.
04:36There were at least 50% of the people who did not take it that seriously.
04:40And I would see them on the roads making mobile videos of air interceptions.
04:47But this time, I don't find a single person on the roads.
04:50Everybody rushes to the shelter because either it's a ballistic missile or it's a cluster bomb.
04:57That's an interesting anecdote there.
04:59Shweta Singh, please stay safe.
05:01And thank you so much for joining us today.
05:04Let's all hope you can come back home sooner and this war can also end sooner.
05:07Thanks so much for joining us.
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