There’s a weird kind of schizophrenia that grips life in Tel Aviv under rockets’ Everything’s almost normal but then there’s those 2 minutes of panic.

Yesterday I sat with my niece and nephew in Rishon Leziyon while they played their newest game. My three year old nephew made the sound of the air raid siren and my six year old niece ran into the corner of the living room and curled up into a ball. That’s it. That’s their game.

In Tel Aviv we have suffered a great deal of rocket attacks over the course of this conflict. Whereas we were used to hearing the air siren only during memorial days it has now become a feature of everyday life.

It seems that any sudden sound is enough to make me flinch and turn my eyes up to the heavens looking for the vapour trails of missile and Iron Dome interceptor. At the start of the conflict I was more blaze, as it has continued I have become less so.

On the one hand life in Tel Aviv has continued as normal. At some point during the day the siren comes on. You duck into an apartment building or leave your apartment for the stairwell, wait there while listening out for the boom, boom, boom of the explosions signalling that the threat is over and then you get on with whatever it was you were doing before. It takes no more than about 4 minutes of my day.

Yet it has the effect of bringing the war home.