Mark A. Feldstein '78, a Crimson editor on leave this year, was working as a volunteer on a kibbutz in northern Israel in March when the Israeli army moved into Lebanon.

KIBBUTZ HANITA. Israel-SUNDAY, MARCH 19

The Palestinians have for the past several days been launching Soviet-made Katyushka rockets into the northern sections of Israel near the Lebanese border. Our kibbutz seems to be one of their targets.

One missile exploded in a banana field not far from here. The Katyushka rockets are almost impossible to aim precisely, but they are small and mobile, and it is very difficult for the Israelis to stop the attacks. In the first few days of the war, the Palestinians had been shelling sections further south, but since the Israelis are pushing the Palestinians back inside Lebanon, our kibbutz is now directly within the Palestinians' target range.

From Kibbutz Hanita, the Lebanese border is just over the next hill, a grenade's throw away. Three high barbed-wire fences separate our kibbutz from the border. The fighting is reported to be as close as six miles away.

Israeli troops are stationed on top of Hanita's highest hill, and I can see their tents and guns while working at my kibbutz job painting baby cribs. It is an odd contrast.

No one can enter or leave the kibbutz without the approval of an armed Israeli brigade. While jogging down a nearby mountain this afternoon, I had to stop to let pass several combat tanks, filled with Israeli men of my age who waved and pretended to shoot me with their guns. They seemed much too young to go to war.

Inside the kibbutz, I notice several soldiers carrying walkie-talkies. A kibbutznik tells me the walkie-talkies are used to warn Hanita and other border towns of rocket attacks detected on the Israeli radar screen. The Israelis use a secret code in case their messages are intercepted. We are supposed to head for the nearest of several bomb shelters if anyone shouts the Hebrew warning Hafligah.

A middle-aged man from another kibbutz near the border was just killed by Palestinian mortar fire. Here in Hanita, the bomb shelters have been packed most nights during the past week; the youngest children are always the first to be rushed to the shelters when an attack is expected. Yet the Israelis who live here seem detached and almost oblivious to the dangers. By now, they have grown used to the violence; it is a part of their daily lives.

Many of the other volunteers have tried to emulate this tough-guy, nothing-scares-us attitude, to the point where they almost deceive themselves about the seriousness of the situation. I like to think I am more realistic--and therefore, more sacred.

SUNDAY NIGHT

Late in the night I am wakened by a tremendous explosion from a Palestinian rocket landing nearby. It shakes the windows of most of the buildings in the kibbutz. I have never been so terrified in my life. For the first time, some of the Israelis are getting scared, too.

The blast sounds like a firecracker exploding right outside my cabin window. I run outside in my pajamas, barefoot, and head for the nearest bomb shelter.

The kibbutz leaders have turned off all the lights in order to make it harder for the Palestinian gunners to find us. A middle-aged German Jew, especially frightened because he has lived through such nightmares before, fears that PLO terrorists could sneak into the kibbutz during the night and massacre us as we huddle in the shelters. He decides to stand guard outside the shelter for most of the night.

Inside, the bomb shelter is a grey hulk of cement and steel. A hole in the ground serves as the toilet. There are about 30 of us crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in our sleeping bags and blankets on the cold, concrete floor. The kibbutz leaders intended to build bunk beds in this shelter, but since the outbreak of the war they have concentrated instead on building several additional new shelters. When we are all squeezed in, someone locks the two ten-inch thick steel doors that are supposed to protect us from the outside world.