Michael R. Kelsen '90 is currently studying in Israel and wrote this report for The Crimson. It was subject to Israeli military censorship.

Friday, January 18 2:15 a.m., Jerusalem

I am jolted out of bed by a deafening air raid siren. I flip on army radio to get a report and then run to the living room to peek out the window, which overlooks the western suburb of Ramot. I suddenly feel the "swoosh" of supersonic jet-wash that has become familiar to all Israelis.

The Civil Defense authorities break into the radio broadcast to announce that an attack is underway and that all citizens should don their masks and move to the "Heder Ha'atum" (the one room in the house that citizens had previously, at the start of the Gulf War, been instructed to seal against chemical attack with foam and nylon sheeting). There we are to await further instructions from the army. "This is not," barks the Haga (Civil Defense authority) spokesperson, "a drill or an exercise." I put on my mask and place my anti-nerve gas injector and my mustard gas powder next to me on the bed. The civil defense announcements are now coming over in English, Russian, French, Spanish and Amharics (Ethiopian language). It has been less than two minutes since the siren first sounded.

4:20 a.m.

The all-clear siren just sounded. We take off our masks as army radio announces that multiple conventional Scuds had indeed struck at the "center" and the "north" of the country, a euphamism that every Isreali knew to mean Tel Aviv and Haifa repectively. No report on casualties yet. I am in a state of shock. It doesn't seem real that I could be abruptly awakened in the middle of the night and forced to hide in a sealed room wearing a suffocating gas mask. The Gulf War has come to Israel.

4:30 p.m.

I just got off the phone with Vernon Loeb, the Philadelphia Inquirer's Jerusalem correspondent. During out five minute conversation he asked, "Do you speak Hebrew?"

"Pretty well," I said.

"Good. Be at the Jerusalem Hotel in half an hour," Loeb said. "Bring clothes for a week and your gas mask. we're going to Tel Aviv."

At least, I think to myself, I am no longer unemployed.

5:05 p.m.

I am driving west with Vernon and two photographers--Ze'ev, a freelancer, and Mike Rondow, from the Knight-Ridder chain--on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. the busiest artery in Israel is deserted save for a few military jeeps whose drivers and passengers are dressed in combat-chemical suits. Vernon asks me what to do in case we are attacked on the highway. As if I know. But as a true Harvard son I give him an answer anyway. He then begins to talk about story ideas. I tune him out as my stomach begins to turn him out as my stomach begins to turn over. I begin to have second thoughts about having come.

6:30 p.m.

We check into the Tel Aviv Hilton, a five star hotel on the beach that houses the foreign press corps in the city. The lobby is bustling with reporters wearing gas masks around their necks.