The Gulf War and Gas Masks, 1991 — Another “Once Upon a Time in Jerusalem”
It was the winter of 1991.
In the photo: a typical family snapshot commemorating that war — a battle heritage photo with a record player in the background, psychedelic curtains, a Formica kitchen, and of course, the iconic wallpaper that was a must-have in every home at the time. White plaster walls with rough textured coating — a staple of that era — are somehow missing from the photo, presumably for security reasons.
Saddam Hussein — who was the Khomeini, Sinwar, or Nasrallah of that era — invaded Kuwait after years of a long war with Iran, aiming to seize its vast oil fields. Iraq was economically crippled by the war expenses and demanded that Kuwait be annexed as a district of Basra — because that’s what Saddam had decided.
In response, a 34-nation Western coalition was formed at the UN to liberate occupied Kuwait.
When Saddam realized the depth of the hole he’d dug and the overwhelming military force arrayed against him, he chose the easiest target — one that wasn’t even part of the coalition: Israel.
He threatened that if Iraq were attacked, he would fire his large Scud missiles at Israel — because every good story needs Jews to blame, a convenient target and hostages for a totalitarian regime.
There were real fears in Israel that the Scuds might carry chemical warheads. Emergency distribution centers hurriedly handed out gas masks and atropine injectors to the public.
Citizens were instructed to prepare a sealed room in their homes to protect against chemical attacks. Within days, makeshift sealed rooms sprang up — ordinary rooms with layers of masking tape crisscrossed on the windows to prevent shattering and flying shards, and the “doomsday weapon” against chemical weapon: a bleach-soaked floor rag, prepared in advance to block the door crack.
The hope was that the stench of bleach would somehow scare the chemical substance away — that it would sniff, panic, and flee back to Baghdad.
On the night of January 17, 1991, the first missile attack on Israel occurred.
The attack took us by surprise. The civilian front was unprepared. A mysterious code phrase, “Nachash Tzefa” (“Viper Snake”), went on air — though no one had a clue what it meant. The IDF spokesperson at the time, Nachman Shai, calmed the public with a phone call from his car on his way to the TV studios.
His calm and confident voice reassured the citizens of Zion, huddled in plastic-wrapped rooms with taped-up windows, gas masks on their faces, and a bleach-soaked rag at the door threshold. His only advice — our secret weapon — for an appropriate Zionist response to the missile barrage was: “Relax and drink water.” A suggestion that didn’t help at all and only added pressure to already anxious people with nervous bladders.
A lot of water was drunk in vain during those tense evenings.
The Americans, thankfully, intervened just in time, deploying Patriot missile batteries across the country to intercept Saddam’s malicious Scuds, which flew stylishly in ballistic arcs from the deserts of Iraq to the Holy Land.
The Patriots made a deafening noise as they launched to intercept Saddam’s whiskered Scuds — but their actual interception success rate would’ve failed them in any self-respecting school, even without calling their parents. A lot of noise — and not much result.
There was chaos and confusion.
People voluntarily injected themselves in the leg with atropine. Others forgot to remove the plug from their gas masks that lets in air, and sat nearly suffocating in sealed rooms while heavy fog clouded the plastic visors and the bleach fumes filled the air. Entire families placed all their trust in masking tape bought hastily from street vendors with sharp instincts, and plastic sheets slapped onto windows in a hurry.
We were instructed to bring a bucket into the sealed room for family bathroom needs — perhaps to mask the bleach smell. Babies were laid into makeshift nylon-tent cribs, and small children were stuffed into hoods with active filters — as every child loves — creating a generation that would keep psychologists specializing in claustrophobia and suffocation nightmares well-employed for years.
Names like Schwarzkopf, President Bush, Patriot, “Nachash Tzefa,” and Scud were on everyone’s lips.
The limited soundtrack of the time featured “Ani Ro’eh Lecha Ba’Einaim” by Etti Ankri, “Al Gagot Tel Aviv,” “Tam HaSharav HaGadol,” and Rita’s songs, which were easily mistaken for air raid sirens.
In total, 19 Scud missiles were fired at Israel during the war. They caused mostly property damage and a relatively small number of casualties: 3 people were killed directly (relatively small — unless they were your friends or family), and 95 more died from suffocation in gas masks or heart failure.
May their memory be a blessing.
But there were also some positives to the Gulf War —
Schools were closed throughout the war, and we passed the time watching “Zehu Ze!” (“That’s It!”) which distracted the nation with Baba Buba’s gematria calculations — years before Shlomo Karhi — and “The World Tonight” with Erez Tal and Avri Gilad.
Indeed, in every generation, they rise up to destroy us — and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hands.
Today, we face different leaders from the Persian Gulf — now with beards instead of mustaches, and with 500 kg warheads that even masking tape can’t hold back. But the basic plot and framework haven’t changed for over two thousand years.
It’s a bit exhausting to be the chosen people in this world — after sleepless nights of sirens and alerts, But we wouldn’t trade this amazing nation that unites in times of crisis for any other, nor the land promised to us since ancient times.
We would gladly trade our neighbors — even for free — but it looks like we’ll need to accept they’re here to stay and understand that perhaps they’re meant to be our challenge to become better and more deserving.
Shabbat Shalom to those far and near from Jerusalem.
May we no longer need shelters or safe rooms, and may we deliver a crushing blow to our enemies — those determined to destroy us, even when we breathe 1,500 km away from them.
May our kidnapped brothers return soon, and may we never forget them — along with our IDF soldiers, pilots, intelligence officers, and security forces.
And may peace finally come — to Israel, and among ourselves as well.
Photographer unknown.
