During an emergency, follow the current Home Front Command instructions. Official guidance

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Preparing and protecting yourself when no shelter is reachable in time

A guide for people who cannot reach a safe room or shelter from their home within the available warning time, including residents of lightweight structures and people who have difficulty reaching shelter.

Guide prepared: October 2026. Follow current Home Front Command instructions during an emergency.

Important notice: This guide brings together instructions and preparedness suggestions for situations where no protective space can be reached within the warning time during rocket or missile fire. It does not replace a protected space that meets official standards, does not authorize makeshift shelters, and does not override current Home Front Command instructions. Instructions may change during an emergency. Different hazards, such as fires and earthquakes, require different guidance.

How to use this guide

This guide is for people who cannot reach a safe room or shelter in time. It begins with what to do during rocket or missile fire, then describes ways to prepare in advance, including for lightweight structures and situations where standard instructions cannot be followed. Read the sections relevant to your home and the abilities of its occupants, then fill in the action sheet at the end.

Four questions to ask first

  • Is there a protected space or a migonit nearby that we can reach and enter within the time available to take shelter?
  • If not, are we in a conventional solidly built building or a lightweight structure, and which protection instructions apply to us?
  • Is anyone unable to follow the instructions for a lightweight structure, even with help from others in the household?
  • Could we stay somewhere with better protection during a prolonged threat?

1. What should we do during an alert when no protected space is available?

Choose the best protective space you can reach within the warning time. First consider a mamad (a protected room inside an apartment), a mamak (a protected space shared on a building floor), or the building’s shared shelter. Other options, if open and accessible in time, include a public shelter, a protected space meeting official standards in a public building, or another public location explicitly approved by the Home Front Command for sheltering. If none is reachable, follow the instructions below for your building type. An interior room in a conventionally built building may offer partial protection; do not assume an interior room in a caravan or shack offers the same protection. Do not set off for a shelter you cannot reach in time.

In a conventional solidly built building

  • If no approved protected space or public refuge is reachable in time, go to an internal stairwell with no windows or external walls. Sit on the stairs themselves, not on the landing or entrance floor. In a three-storey building, choose the middle floor; in a taller building, choose a flight of stairs with at least two floors above it. This reduces exposure to openings and blast effects.
  • If no suitable internal stairwell is available, go to an interior room with as few external walls, windows and openings as possible. Sit next to an interior wall, below window level and away from the doorway. Do not choose a kitchen, bathroom or toilet because tiles and glass may shatter.
  • If you cannot reach a suitable internal stairwell or interior room, lie on the floor and protect your head with your hands, as far as you can.

In a caravan, shack or other lightweight structure

  • If you can reach a protected space that meets official standards, or a public location approved by the Home Front Command for sheltering, in time, leave the structure and enter it.
  • If no approved protected space or public refuge is available but a migonit installed for public use is reachable in time, enter it and follow the instructions posted there. A migonit is a small concrete shelter that may reduce injury from fragments and blast but is not equivalent to a standard safe room or compliant shelter.
  • If no place of protection can be reached in time, leave the structure, lie on the ground and protect your head with your hands. Do not assume that an interior room in a lightweight structure protects you in the same way as an interior room in a conventional solidly built building.

Why lie low? The Home Front Command explains that lying on the ground reduces the body's exposure to fragments. A shallow, safe depression already at your immediate location may offer some additional protection. Do not move away to look for one, and do not enter any hole or ditch that could put you in danger. This is not advice to dig a shelter during an alert.

If you cannot leave the structure or lie down

For people unable to leave a lightweight structure, Home Front Command instructions also shared by ILAN advise staying in place, bending down as far as possible and protecting the head with the hands. For people who can get outside but cannot lie on the ground, accessible public guidance emphasizes bending as low as possible and protecting the head. These are emergency measures for situations involving physical limitations, not adequate substitutes for protective shelter.

For all situations in this section: After taking the initial protective action, remain in the place where you are sheltering for as long as the latest Home Front Command instructions require. If you are instructed to wait for an explicit all-clear, do not leave before one is given. Do not assume you can automatically leave after ten minutes in every event.

2. Prepare in advance: the place, access and exit route

  • Check the warning time for your area and whether you can reach the place you have chosen within that time, including at night, with children or with a person who needs assistance.
  • If a migonit is available, find out where it is, whether it is intended for your use, and whether the access route is open and passable. Do not assume that a public building or car park is a protected space.
  • Remove obstacles from the route to your chosen place of protection. Check that doors and gates can be opened during a power outage. Keep a light, shoes and essential mobility aids close at hand.
  • In lightweight structures, identify the exit route in advance and check it for obstacles, exposed electrical cables and other dangers. Do not delay taking shelter during an alert to collect belongings or documents.

3. When someone cannot follow the protection instructions

If someone cannot leave a lightweight structure, arrange in advance for assistance that can actually be provided safely and a plan that fits that person's abilities.

  • Check whether the protective action can be carried out with safe, agreed assistance and what you will do if the person expected to help is absent. Do not lift or move someone using a method you do not know how to carry out safely.
  • If there is no workable solution, record the unresolved need on the action sheet and consider more accessible accommodation with better protection (section 5).
  • For mobility aids, medical treatment needs, receiving alerts and alternatives to a regular helper, see the Prepared Home guide on emergency preparedness for functional needs. There is no need to repeat all its instructions here.

4. Can protection be improved?

Partial protective measures may reduce exposure to fragments and blast, but they are not substitutes for a standard safe room or compliant shelter. It is important to distinguish professionally designed and built protection from untested do-it-yourself construction.

  • Improving an existing building: The Home Front Command publishes specifications for professionally strengthening rooms or building a separate protective space. Selecting a suitable method for a particular building, especially a lightweight structure, requires professional planning and assessment.
  • Migonit units and professionally built earth-filled barriers: A January 2026 State Comptroller report documents the use of migonit units and HESCO earth-filled protective barriers in dispersed Bedouin communities. They are intended to reduce injury from fragments and blast. If such a refuge is nearby, check whether it is meant for public use, where its entrance is and whether you can reach it in time.
  • Excavations and improvised shelters: A June 2025 Knesset discussion considered dugouts and concrete pipes as possible partial responses to the shortage of protection. A Home Front Command representative acknowledged that an excavation might offer some protection, but identified flood and maintenance risks and the need for professional testing. No approved do-it-yourself building plan was presented in that discussion.

What can you do? If you are considering building a refuge in a yard or improving protection in a building, consult appropriate professionals in advance about stability, drainage, safe entry and exit, and the degree of protection provided. This is a precautionary recommendation from Prepared Home, not a Home Front Command construction instruction. Do not dig or improvise structures on the assumption that they have been tested or approved as protective shelters.

5. If the threat continues: consider accommodation with better protection

If your home has no protection that can be reached in time, especially if someone cannot leave a lightweight structure, consider in advance whether you could stay temporarily somewhere with better protection during a prolonged threat.

  • Check whether you could stay with relatives or elsewhere where suitable protection is accessible. Consider children, medical needs and mobility.
  • If assistance is required, ask the local authority or social services about available options. Protected overnight accommodation has been arranged in some emergencies, but it should not be assumed to be available everywhere or at all times.
  • Plan any voluntary move for a time when it is safe to travel and in accordance with current instructions. Do not begin a journey in the middle of an alert to look for shelter. For preparing to evacuate, see the site's evacuation and temporary accommodation guide.

6. Practice and update

  • Practise the route to shelter or out of the structure, and who will provide assistance, at ordinary times. Do not put anyone at risk or simulate a dangerous event.
  • Update the plan if you move home, available protection changes, or the abilities of household members change.
  • If receiving alerts presents particular difficulties where you live, consult the guide for rural and isolated communities.

7. Short action sheet

Write down the decisions that suit your home. Keep a copy where you can reach it and update it when available protection or household needs change.

This action sheet is only a summary. During an emergency, follow the latest Home Front Command instructions.

Independent publication: This guide was developed as part of Prepared Home. It is not produced, approved or operated by any of the bodies mentioned in it.

Main sources

The sources below include protective guidance and records of partial protection and past initiatives. Some describe measures used at particular times, not services that are available now or instructions that remain in force. Always follow current Home Front Command instructions. Documenting a structure does not authorize building it yourself.

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