What it’s like to be an Israeli these days?

Our lives as Israelis have become so surreal in recent years that we thought it could not get worse. But it has.

For context, every Israeli man and woman have a mandatory military service of a couple of years. Most spend 20 years or more, in doing military reserve service. So, we are trained to think like soldiers. This means that we always watch our backs, thrive at a high level of uncertainty, and trust the most, our country, friends and ourselves.

This DNA has brought us tremendous achievements like in the high tech sector, but it has also brought us lives with high level of insecurity and anxiety. ?We like to live the moment and we are generally happy.

Much of this has been broken since October 7th 2023.

Prior to this war we had missiles shot at our cities every couple of weeks. This has been part of our lives in recent years. Approximately once a year either Hamas or Hezbollah would wage a more intense attack on us and then we have some quite for a few more months.

Putting aside terror attacks on civilians that are common in Israel (mostly in the West bank), just the thought that a Sovern country would be accepting rockets shots at its cities is insane.

Since October 7th, 2023, more than 5,000 rockets have been shot at Israel. Not only at the periphery of the country near Gaza and Lebanon, but also at major cities like Tel Aviv.

Last week I was with my grandchildren in their apartment in Tel Aviv. The warning siren sounded at 9:00 PM and we went into the building stairway to hide. How do you explain to young children the meaning of rockets shot at them. Every Israeli knows the different noise of a missile hitting its target or getting intercepted by our aerial defense system. We can watch this happening from the windows of our houses. It is surreal – it is crazy – it is frightening.

Nevertheless, we have learned to live in this insane reality, hoping that our enemies will come to their senses one day, realizing that they cannot defeat us.

The savage brutal attack on innocent civilianson October 7th tore apart every piece of the delicate fabric of our society. We leaned how to cope with regular violence of shooting and missiles but never imagined that thousands of Hamas terrorists will cross the border from Gaza and capture civilian communities for hours, slaughtering women, children and elderly people.

We never imagined that they will break into military bases, on the border with Gaza, and devastate them.? These events have broken a very fundamental sentiment of trust that we had in our government and military. A new sentiment has risen. ?Nothing is safe anymore. Even the basic livelihood of our families in Israel.

1,400+ people have been killed in Israel since October 7th and 220 kidnapped to Gaza.? Compared to the size of the US population, this is like 62,000 people killed in the US in one day. More people are likely to die in continuous fighting in Israel in the next few months.

On September 11th, 2001, 3000 American were killed in the Al Qaeda attack, and it was a devastating event for all Americans.

Every person in Israel knows someone who was either killed, injured, or kidnapped. The tragedy is touching everyone, in a very profound way.

All Israelis are now looking to what will happen next in Gaza and in Lebanon. We are glued to the news and social networks.?

350,000 Israelis have been drafted to military service. Half of my company’s engineers are in service. For context, this is like more than 13 million American taken from their homes and work and sent to war.? 16 million Americans served in World War 2. This is the scale we are experiencing in Israel. ?The back of the country is now the front and the front is the back.

The thoughts and hearts of every Israeli go out to their family members and friends that were sent to the front. Mother, fathers, brothers, and sisters are sick to their stomach, thinking about the risks their loved ones are going to face.

Millions of Israelis are now volunteering to help and support the military troops and the citizens of the communities near Gaza who are now refugees in their own country.

Israel has evacuated tens of thousands of Israelis near the border of Gaza and Lebanon. They were in harm’s way. They live now in hotels or with relatives.

Nations around the world are coming to help and support us with the US leading the efforts.

It is heartwarming and encouraging to see. It is also heartwarming and encouraging to witness how the people of Isarel are coming together. Leaving differences and disputes behind and uniting to win this war and come out stronger. We have no alternative.

#israel #hamasisisis #standwithisrael #jewishpeople #IsraelGazaConflict

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