Tel Aviv shortly after a rocket attack yesterday evening. Photo by Flash90.

This morning my husband and I woke up early. After the volley of missiles last night we were in two minds about whether to send our eight-year-old to summer camp in Ramat Ha’Kovesh, and whether our 16-year-old really should be teaching surfing on a Tel Aviv beach while missiles rain down across the country.

Yesterday evening, he was on the beach with all the children from his surf camp when the siren went off. They ran for cover to a nearby building, and my son, stepping out for a second, saw the missile high above the sky in Tel Aviv shot down by Israel’s anti-missile system Iron Dome.

Last night we also experienced our first siren in the village where we live near the Green Line. We’d never expected to have a siren here – we are surrounded by Israeli-Arab villages, and the West Bank is just over the hill. Nevertheless it sounded and by the time we’d finished debating whether or not it was necessary to go to our secure room, the alarm was over.

You can’t live in a country as small as Israel and not be directly affected by what is happening here. This is a sustained and coordinated attack on a huge swath of the country. I may feel far from the action in my home and office, but my husband works in Tel Aviv, the staff of ISRAEL21c is dotted all over – from near Jerusalem to Jaffa, I have relatives and friends all over the country, and meetings are scheduled in all sorts of places.

So what do you do when your country and your home is under attack? Do you stop everything, and hole up in the secure room? Do you shut down and hide under a blanket until everything stops?

No, you don’t. You just get on with business as usual. In conflict after conflict through the years, Israel has continued to do just that.

So the little one went to summer camp with all his friends, the oldest has gone to the beach to teach, my husband driving him on his way to work. My 13-year-old is still asleep in bed, where he will probably awake around lunchtime. All goes on as usual.

At ISRAEL21c we also go on as usual. We all had our stories to tell this morning of sirens, and explosions, and of shelters and alerts, but then we sat down and started work. Israel may be under attack, but we will continue to bring you, our readers, all the same news and stories about the phenomenal developments going on in this country.

Israeli ingenuity is transforming the world we live in. Whether it is developments in health, technology or environment, Israeli innovations are making the world a better place. Conflict, or no conflict, ISRAEL21c will continue to bring you those stories. It’s business as usual.

Nicky Blackburn is the editor of ISRAEL21c.