An Israeli mayor is visiting Bowling Green to persuade people to help provide transportable bomb shelters to Israel beginning with the southern Israeli town of Sderot located on the Gaza border.

Ilan Shohat of Zefat, Israel, and Shep Alster – co-founder of Operation Lifeshield, a nonprofit organization building and installing above-ground bomb shelters in Israel – will speak at 6:30 p.m. tonight at Hillvue Heights Church. Others who will speak include Israel Always founder Earl Cox and Americans for Israel president and CEO Ben Kinchlow.

Operation Lifeshield plans to put more shelters in southern Israel to protect citizens from the barrage of rockets and heavy mortars and then concentrate on other vulnerable areas such as the areas to the north of Israel along the Lebanese border where Hezbollah operates. Since 2005, 5,000 rockets and 4,000 heavy mortars have been launched into southern Israel – with 2,000 rockets and 1,600 heavy mortars of those launched in 2008, according to Operation Lifeshield.

“(Hillvue Heights pastor) Steve (Ayers) and I visited (Israel) in February,” local Operation Lifeshield coordinator Bart Britt said. “We want to let people in Israel know that we are Christians and that Christians in the United States love Israel.”

The organization provides bus shelters that cost about $19,500, and larger shelters, which hold 30 people, that cost about $36,000 to build, Alster said.

“It takes two weeks to build one. The company we buy them from usually has a few in stock so we’re able to have them in place within two weeks,” he said. “We have placed more than 55 shelters and have five in production.”

Shohat said the people in his city have been deeply affected by bombings.

“The situation today is an abnormal situation. We get 10 to 12 bombs a day,” he said. “When they sound the alarm we have 30 seconds to run away. The people in Zefat are afraid, but they won’t leave the city. There is low morale.

“We must get protection for people to live a normal life. We as mayors have a responsibility to our citizens. Providing a place for people to run, that’s the least we can do,” he said. “People need to know that in the next 15 seconds they will have a place to run. People must go to work. People need to go shopping. We need to send children to school.”

The shelters have been lifesaving, Alster said.

“With the bus stop shelters, people can go about their daily business and know that kids know instinctively where they can run,” he said. “They’re safe for the duration of a red alert.”

Britt said people often think of the cities that are being bombed as being far away from where the bombs are being launched. He compared it to bombs being launched throughout southcentral Kentucky from Greenwood Mall.

“We take it for granted,” he said. “We live in a blessed country.”

Alster envisions a day when the shelters won’t be needed.

“We can use them to plant trees or knock them to the ground,” he said.

— For more information on Operation Lifeshield, visit www.

operationlifeshield.com.