It is almost a reflex for 92-year-old Reine Benhamou.

When the alarm is raised she heads to a safe room at her home in the southern Israeli border town of Sderot, hoping it will protect her from any incoming Hamas rockets.

But the frail widow, who came to Israel from Algeria in 1961, feels out of harm’s way most at the local daycare centre she visits four times a week.

“When I get here, I feel reassured. I know that I am safe here,” she told euronews.

“I am really afraid at home.”

“This place is well prepared and fully secure,” said Rafe Eitem, the director of the daycare centre.

“There is a concrete roof built above the original roof and there are also three shelters. When there’s a red alert, each nurse takes her group to the shelter; they have 15 seconds to get there. It is enough time.”

But Reine and the others must head home at the end of their visits to face the next alert alone, knowing like so many in this Middle East conflict, that danger is never far away.