HaGaon Rav Yitzhak Yosef, Nasi of the Moetzes Chachmei HaTorah,  published a series of halachic guidelines for Pesach during wartime.

Bedikas Chametz:

A. If a phone alert is heard after reciting the bracha, one should check a small area, even just a drawer, with the candle, and then hurry to a suitable protected space. If there is a siren and no time at all, one should immediately go to the protected space, remain silent and not speak. After the danger has passed and he leaves the protected area, he should resume the bedikah without repeating the bracha.

B. In a building with a shared shelter, protected space, or stairwell, there is an obligation to check for chametz there. The neighbors should appoint an agent (such as the Va’ad HaBayis) to check on behalf of everyone. If there are neighbors who are not Shomrei Mitzvos, it is proper to have kavanah not to acquire any chametz they may leave in the shared areas.

C. One whose home was damaged by missiles and is not living there should include the chametz in that home in his mechiras chametz to a non-Jew.

D. Evacuees staying in hotels must perform Bedikas Chametz with a bracha in their room.

E. If neighbors bring chametz into the shared protected space during Pesach at a time of a siren, it is appropriate to gently explain the severity of the matter. If they do not listen, one is permitted to remain there.

Leil HaSeder

A. If a phone alert sounds in the middle of Kiddush, and one is in a place where the alert allows two or three minutes, he should quickly finish Kiddush, drink a revi’is while reclining, and hurry to the protected space. If he is in a place where there is no time at all, one should stop even in the middle of the brachos of Kiddush and go to the protected area. Upon returning (from the safe room, shelter, or stairwell), one should resume from the beginning of the bracha.

B. If one wishes to change locations while in the middle of eating the matzah or korech and continue eating in the protected space, it is not necessary to recite a new bracha, and the same applies to the seudah

C. If one recites the bracha on the matzah or maror and a siren sounds, one should taste a small amount and go immediately to the protected space. Upon returning, one should eat 27 grams while reclining, without reciting a new bracha. It is good to be machmir that everyone eat two kezaiyos while reclining.

It is muttar to speak during the siren even in the middle of eating matzah if necessary, such as saying that ‘there’s a siren, go to the safe room.’ But one should not speak excessively, since the blessing ‘Al Achilas Matzah” also covers the korech, and one should not speak until eating the korech.

D. If a siren sounds in the middle of the bracha “Asher Ge’alanu,” and there is no two-or three-minute window, one should stop in the middle of the bracha and go to the protected space. One may continue the bracha of “Asher Ge’alanu” in the protected space even without holding the kos, and upon returning to the table, should drink the second kos while reclining.

E. If one drinks the second kos in the protected space, or eats a kezayis of matzah there, and it is not possible to recline, he should tilt his head slightly to the left and drink.

F. If a siren sounds in the middle of Kriyas Haggadah, one should stop immediately, even in the middle of a passuk, and go to the protected space. Upon returning to the table, it is good to begin again from the beginning of that section.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)