Forget the war with Iran — Israelis must keep on living
The sight of an assault rifle perched in front of a ball pit filled with squealing toddlers is incongruous but not uncommon these days in Israel. Its owner, attending to his crying 5-year-old, is a volunteer for a rapid response counter-terrorist squad with the police.
Many such squads have formed in Israeli cities in the months following Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, in which 1,200 people were murdered and 253 were taken hostage into Gaza. But since a pair of strikes last month attributed to Israel took out Hamas chief Ismail Haniyah in Tehran and Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr in Beirut, the squads — and Israelis in general — have been on high alert. Amid the looming threat of a multifront retaliation from Iran and its proxies, Israelis are navigating a strange blend of high tension and continuing on with their daily routine.
For many, this means finding ways to keep their children entertained and protected from the sun — as much as missiles — during the long summer vacation. For others, it means continuing to go to work or on vacation, with varying degrees of adjustments. Nevertheless, Tel Aviv’s beaches and cafes are still bustling, and the highways remain clogged with their usual traffic.
“People are not putting their daily lives on hold,” says analyst and public opinion researcher Dahlia Scheindlin, author of the book “The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel.” “But there is nothing normal about those daily lives right now.”
The rapid response volunteer at the gymboree is a prime example. A hotelier by day, his Tel Aviv property would typically be bustling with European tourists during the summer’s peak season. But for the past 10 months, the hotel has been repurposed as a temporary home for Israelis from Kiryat Shmona, an Israeli town abutting the border with Lebanon. As many as 80,000 Israelis have evacuated Israel’s embattled north owing to daily pummeling from Hezbollah rockets. Just last month, 12 Druze Israelis were killed by a Hezbollah missile launched from Lebanon.
Israelis are uncertain about what course the country should take militaristically. A poll this week found that 48% of Israelis support a pre-emptive strike against Iran and Hezbollah, while more than a third believe Israel should wait, and only respond if attacked. The stakes could not be higher: During Iran’s first assault on Israel in April, some 400 missiles and drones were launched, virtually all intercepted by a multi-national coalition of Western-led forces.
This time the threat could be far worse Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon along with Houthi rebels in Yemen have vowed to join Iran in any potential assault featuring thousands (rather than hundreds) of weapons. Only last month, a Houthi drone managed to evade Israeli defense systems, killing one civilian when it landed minutes from the beach.
“There is a sense of very deep anxiety about what is going to happen, minute by minute, hour by hour,” said Scheindlin. But the feelings of dread, she added, were balanced by Israelis’ typical resilience.
Over the past two weeks, an underlying current of bravado and dark Jewish humor has emerged, a hallmark of how Israelis face danger. While Israelis generally don’t celebrate the deaths of their enemies – indeed, a video of a man handing out baklava in response to the assassinations, mimicking Palestinian celebrations after terror attacks, was widely criticized on social media as being in poor taste – funny memes and jokes abound.
One making the rounds on social media is a Save the Date in which guests are cordially invited to “The Big Attack” featuring Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis, with Hamas as the opening act. According to the invite, the event promises to “be a blast.”
Gil Shohat, a pianist and composer from Tel Aviv, describes the current situation as nothing short of surreal, comparing it simultaneously to a Dali painting and a dystopian film. His concerts are full, he said, but nevertheless, every performance feels like it could be the last.
“Last week I finished a show [in Israel’s north] playing Beethoven and Mozart, and the forest around me was in flames from Hezbollah missiles,” he said. “It’s like living in The Matrix. You are in reality, but it is not reality.”
For many Israelis the only reality right now is maintaining a sense of calm for their children. Meital Cohen, a vacationer from the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Gat, was also at that Tel Aviv gymboree, escaping the scorching sun with twin toddlers. “We have to keep going for the kids,” she said, “they feel it too. I’m scared, but I’m also a woman of faith.” Repeating a refrain routinely heard these days, she added, “Life is stronger than everything.”
Adam Ezekiel, a fitness trainer and observant Jew who moved to Israel from Toronto in 2008, also credited his devotion for helping manage his fears. “Of course, it’s not to say that damage or loss of life can’t occur,” he said. “But I personally feel God is with me and we’ll be okay.” Ezekiel ought to know: Last month he was on an organized tour in the Samarian hills when a Palestinian sniper shot him in the chest. Doctors decided against removing the bullet, fearing it could leave his arm paralyzed.
In the communal dining room of Orly Rafaeli’s kibbutz in the center of the country, the possibility of a broader attack dominates nightly conversations. The kibbutz’s proximity to a key army base has heightened her fellow kibbutzniks’ fears. But Rafaeli, despite living far from a bomb shelter, remained calm. A self-described atheist, she attributed her composure to fatalism. “If we have to die, we die. If we have to be exiled to the diaspora, so be it. Worst case, we’ll come back in 2,000 years like last time,” she quipped.
Like many Israelis, Rafaeli has an emergency kitbag waiting by the door with water, flashlight and batteries, and first aid supplies. In the event of an attack, Rafaeli plans to cycle to her daughter’s house to help shuttle her grandchildren to their bomb shelter. Still, she adds, the warning provided by emergency sirens — which sounds only a minute or so before the projectile’s impact — are woefully inadequate.
Tami Jeffay was forced to make a snap decision to cancel a late-night activity at the day camp she runs in the hilltop town of Zichron Yaakov due to mounting threats of an imminent attack. Israeli authorities have ordered an end to most overnight camps but day camps are still operating. “The kids hardly complained,” she said. “It’s the parents who are more of a problem,” she added, recounting frantic calls from parents asking if the site had a bomb shelter.
Even without the latest threat from Iran, Jeffay pointed out that “routine” acts of terror, like the shooting attack on Ezekiel, continue unabated. “We can only control so much. Just look at what happened in Holon,” she said, referring to Sunday’s killing of two civilians by a Palestinian infiltrator in suburban Tel Aviv.
“The only time we really saw people’s lives come to a standstill was just after October 7th because we didn’t know if there were still terrorists in the country,” observed Adam Scott Bellos, CEO of the Israel Innovation Fund. More than 3,000 terrorists from Gaza breached the border, resulting in fierce battles over the ensuing days.
An Iran-led attack is likely to target critical infrastructure, including the power grid, prompting many NGOs and civil society groups to implement new mechanisms to prepare for prolonged blackouts. Drawing lessons from Oct. 7, when entire towns were inaccessible for hours, Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency organization, has conducted nationwide drills involving more than 10,000 paramedics, midwives and doctors simulating a response to a scenario without phones, GPS, radio or the Internet.
Israeli healthcare aid organization Yad Sarah has equipped Israelis living in areas under acute threat with medical equipment including portable, battery-operated oxygen concentrators and hospital-grade beds. International relief organization IsraAID and the Israeli Association of Community Centers have invested millions of dollars to train 140 community-based emergency teams across northern Israel.
Even millennia-old citadels like the Tower of David in Jerusalem have revised their emergency policies with Iran in mind. Two days after the Haniyah killing in Tehran, stickers appeared across the site instructing visitors to remain in the galleries in the event of a siren. Once used as guard rooms, the ancient walls are robust enough to serve as bomb shelters, the museum said.
Although phone lines and internet connections have so far remained intact, the Israeli military has been scrambling GPS for months in an effort to curb Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks. For Cohen and other Israeli vacationers who rely heavily on GPS apps like Waze to navigate away from dangerous areas, it has caused an extra layer of frustration. “Still, it’s not enough to make me vacation overseas,” Cohen said, citing soaring antisemitism.
Many share Cohen’s feelings. Asked if he would leave — at least for the duration of a potential war — Todd Singer, a retired criminal and civil judge living in the coastal town of Netanya, was resolute. “Never. Israel is and will always be my only true home. I refuse to change my daily life, that’s what they want us to do.”
Still, he conceded that the war would result in “collective PTSD for generations,” illustrating his point by sharing a drawing of a rocket by his 4-year-old granddaughter.
For Israelis currently overseas, the experience is mixed. Jerusalem-based chef Tali Friedman, for instance, is now in the US — but longs to return to Israel, citing her fears of being far from loved ones in the event of an attack. “All I really want to do is just be home . . . with my children, with my family and with my people,” she said.
Tamar Shapira, an Investor Relations specialist, said she was relieved to be out of the country. She, her husband and their two children boarded the last available flight to Thailand for a vacation planned months ago. “We don’t even know if we’ll have a flight back or if we’ll be stuck here but I’m actually kind of happy about that — for the kids at least.”
Richard Binstock, an immigrant from the UK, is moving back to London at the end of the month at his Israeli wife’s urging, underscoring the tension of what he calls “the waiting game.”
“They broke her,” he said, referring to Israel’s enemies. “She’s no longer willing to put up with the nightly threat of war that never actually happens.”
