I landed at Ben Gurion Airport yesterday for a long-planned trip to Israel. (What’s that saying about God laughing at our plans?) We landed in the afternoon Israeli time, checked into our hotel, had a scrumptious dinner, and crawled into our beds — only to be awoken at 3 a.m. by sirens blaring across the country, alerting all citizens to the imminence of Iran’s retaliation against Israel’s preemptive strikes.

While the timing of my visit may not be excellent, insofar as all our planned tourism has screeched to a halt, I can at least claim to be a war correspondent for a little while.

Inside of Israel, it hardly feels like the nation is at war — even though the country is fighting on nearly every front. (Israel has been at war with Hamas in Gaza for some 616 days and at odds with the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen for nearly as long. The Israel Defense Forces more or less eliminated Hezbollah last year in a string of covert attacks.) Israel’s latest strikes on Iran are a bold but necessary step — a step that the Israelis have long warned the ayatollah they would take if Iran failed to abide by nuclear nonproliferation agreements.

In Jerusalem, where I am staying, the city is quiet but glimmering. Some cars, although few, are still on the roads. A food delivery driver on a motorcycle passed underneath my hotel window this morning. A fellow hotel guest is snoozing in the lobby, head tilted back, contented snores sounding. (I’ve been told this is a traditional post-Shabbat dinner nap.) The hotel bar was open late.

It’s hard to tell whether the quiet of the city is due to the sirens or Shabbat. The first wave of missiles today came right as we sat down for Shabbat dinner. We brought our wine and challah bread down to the fortified shelter below and listened to Evangelical Christian high schoolers (also at our hotel) sing some Hebrew tunes. In ten minutes or so, we received the all clear — back to the table for a rack of lamb.

For the rest of the evening, emergency alerts on our phones have kept us moving up and down the stairwell from the lobby to the bunker. (The shelter is not the most pleasant place to spend many hours on end, as it lacks A/C and a restroom.) Equipped, however, with Wi-Fi and a flat screen, we all watched clips on local news of the few Iranian missiles that pierced the Iron Dome and hit residential buildings in Tel Aviv.

What is clear from Iran’s launch pattern is that they hardly have one. The Islamic Republic appears to be targeting anything and anyone in Israel. I’m heartened to see so many U.S. leaders profess their support for Israel, as the small nation takes on a long-standing foe of the West. (Iran’s policy remains “Death to America.”) I have hope, with U.S. backing, that Iran’s capacity to retaliate will remain limited.

But, time for some shut-eye. Until the next sirens . . .