More than a third of Israelis live without access to a standard protected space against ballistic missiles from Iran, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen, and a website called Angels of the Shelter is trying to connect people without protection to available safe rooms. The platform exists because the official setup leaves a huge chunk of people exposed, and the burden of that exposure lands on ordinary residents scrambling for somewhere to hide.
Who Gets Left Outside
Accommodation is arranged in advance rather than in real time, allowing people to arrive at the protected space with advance notice. Users can view shelters within a few minutes’ walk and filter them by host type, accessibility and distance. That is the practical reality of the project: people without protection are matched with people who have it, because the built environment does not provide equal safety in the first place.
Tamir Cohen, a biomedical engineering student at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, developed the platform after his experience four years ago finding a place to stay while hiking the Israel National Trail, which runs from Kibbutz Dan in the north to Eilat in the south and is 1,100 km long. Cohen, 26, was born in Kiryat Ono and lives in Beersheba for his studies. He is participating in the LEADERS program of the Entrepreneurship Center 360 at the university, where he created the website, which is open to the general public.
Cohen said, “Since the start of the war, I have come across quite a few cases of relatives and friends who have wandered from house to house, and I personally found myself staying with neighbors who built a protected space in their garden.” He also said, “I also saw articles about people sleeping on the light rail or in parking lots, and about weddings held in shelters.” Those are the images produced when civil defense gaps meet missile warnings: people improvising survival wherever they can.
Mutual Aid in the Ruins of the System
Cohen said the young couple who offered him a place in their protected space were only a minute away from his rented apartment, and at night, woken up by missile warnings, he came dressed in his pajamas. Other neighbors were there too, as well as dogs. He said, “I recognized the need, as I learned in BGU’s LEADERS program in which I’m participating.” He added, “The Angels of the Trail are people who opened their homes and hearts to me without any desire for compensation and deepened my sense of mutual responsibility.”
That same logic now gets repackaged into Angels of the Shelter. Cohen said, “The Israel National Trail is a hiking path marked white, blue, and orange. Its significance lies in promoting national identity, commemorating fallen soldiers, connecting diverse cultures, and fostering tourism through its immense geographical, historical, and religious diversity.” He said, “This is where I got the idea to connect this feeling with the need I identified during the war on the home front. I decided to establish a platform called ‘Angels of the Shelters’ which brings the spirit of the ‘Angels of the Trail’ to the world of emergency routine.” He said, “It is being used by Israelis across the country.”
Cohen, who served in the IDF in intelligence technology, is now in his fourth year at BGU. He is already working for a small startup involved in promoting women’s medicine and fertility that will soon carry out clinical studies, but he cannot give details at this early stage. He said, “I was interested in promoting solidarity, bringing people who have protected spaces in their homes or gardens and are ready to welcome neighbors who lack them.” He added, “We met when it was relatively quiet, before the missiles were aimed at Israel, so we got to know each other. The couple and I have since become friends, talking in the protected spaces about ourselves and each other.”
Cohen said, “My parents in Kiryat Ono, who have encouraged me a lot, have a protected space in their apartment that they share with others.” He said he wants to get as many people as possible matched with a protected space, adding, “It’s for an emergency, and it is saving lives. But I want to turn this cooperation into one used in routine times, for example, so that people, including the elderly, won’t feel alone.”
The University Pipeline
The LEADERS program that inspired Cohen was established a few years ago and is headed by Gadi Bahat, who has much experience in management and business. Bahat said, “We cultivate entrepreneurs who know how to create value in a changing reality.” He said, “Tamir identified a real-time need, connected it to a personal experience, and built a relevant solution, and this is exactly the standard we aim for.”
Bahat also said, “We select excellent students, set a high bar for them, and accompany them with real tools that also develop a sense of competence, to turn ideas into action – because in the end, this is what produces results.” He said the Entrepreneurship 360 Center promotes innovation and entrepreneurship in the Negev region and plays a vital role in connecting academia and industry. He said it was established with a vision to transform ideas from university communities into impactful initiatives and constitutes a dynamic ecosystem in which students, researchers and professionals collaborate to advance technological and social developments.
Bahat added, “For students, a career that matches one’s interests and education, let alone the lifestyle one would want to lead, can feel like an impossible dream.” He said, “Leaders in every field know the secret to success is proactively adapting to change.” He added, “By gaining the skills and experience needed to face the world with confidence, they can turn challenges into opportunities for professional and personal achievement – whether in a job at a great company, or as the CEO of their own.”
Bahat said the LEADERS approach connects classroom learning to the needs of business and society through workshops, lectures, volunteer mentorship and training on cutting-edge technology. Cohen said the program consists of two semesters during the year and includes a two-week summer accelerator at the beginning of August in which students translate classroom experience into a venture in the real world. He said the first semester focuses on the early stages of innovation, including developing an idea for a business and turning ideas into successful business opportunities, while the second emphasizes the move from opportunity to implementation and gives students the knowledge and skills required to create the right conditions for success. Bahat concluded, “From academic knowledge and leadership skills to hands-on training and implementation, LEADERS takes students on a step-by-step journey through the entire process of entrepreneurship, ensuring that they have a solid footing in each stage before proceeding to the next.”