“I’m desperate. “I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this war,” Gideon Bor, 79, the archetype of the Ashkenazi elite (Jews of European origin) who founded the State of Israel, mused on Thursday afternoon in the square of the Museum of contemporary art in Tel Aviv “The images from Gaza are terrible,” admits this retired civil engineer and contractor who fought in previous conflicts, “but what else can we do after the Hamas bloodbath on October 7?” argues he mourns with a mantra that the majority of Israelis chant in the face of massacres of civilians like the one at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza this week.
In her hands she holds a poster with the image of Monar Yanai, her son’s sister-in-law, 40 – “a happy, creative woman,” she remembers – who had come to sell the handmade jewelry she designed at Supernova music festival near the border with the Palestinian Strip, where she was kidnapped along with dozens of Israeli civilians. “We don’t know what to do” sums up the feeling of a generation that fought against neighboring Arab countries in the Six-Day Wars (1967) and Yom Kippur (1973) and dreamed of fighting with the Palestinians in the Oslo Accords Making Peace (1993). After losing faith in the government and participating in protest marches against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent months, he says he has also lost faith in the army. “The only thing that is clear is that we have to put an end to Hamas forever,” he says.
Like the rest of Israelis, Bor saw his everyday life – as a retiree accustomed to going out with children and grandchildren and sharing hobbies with friends – disrupted by the conflict in Gaza. Now he mobilizes every afternoon with yellow ribbons along with other hostage families, who have not been heard from for four weeks, who were captured by the Islamist militia. More than 350,000 men and women between the ages of 21 and 40 were mobilized as army reservists and sent to the front lines in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon or the West Bank from their positions in factories and businesses, in the countryside and in the schools .
Gideon Bor, 79, shows a picture of his relative Monar Yanai, 40, who was kidnapped in Tel Aviv, Gaza, on Thursday 2nd.Edward Kaprov
In the early days of the conflict, Israel was a land of ghost towns. Now try to get the pulse back before October 7th. Since the end of last month, students have been returning to schools and institutes provided there is a bomb shelter, which is not the case in 20% of centers.
“My two eldest grandchildren were integrated into a school and a kindergarten in Jerusalem. The baby is with its parents,” said Meir Margalit, 71, an Israeli historian close to the pacifist left. “My son was evacuated from the city of Ashkelon (about 15 kilometers from the Gaza border, where Hamas rockets frequently land). The five members of his family now live in one room in my house,” he explains. “It’s not too dramatic if you compare it to what thousands of Palestinian families are experiencing,” clarifies Margalit, who admits that she no longer wants to follow the news: “The pain overcomes me and I do everything to help the heartbreaking to escape.” Stories from the survivors of the murderous attack [de Hamás] on October 7, but the efforts are unsuccessful.”
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Due to a shortage of teachers, the majority of students in Israel are learning between in-person and virtual teaching models, except for areas near Gaza and Lebanon, where more than 200,000 people have been evacuated and schools remain closed. Many parents had to give up their jobs to care for their children.
Almost all Jewish university students went to the front. Israeli Arabs (20% of the population) are not required to serve in the military, but classrooms remain closed. The start of the academic year, which is expected to last several weeks next summer, has been postponed until December 3 at the earliest, according to the Times of Israel information portal at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
A dealer waits for customers in front of his shop in the Old City of Jerusalem on Tuesday. Alvaro García
Two workers of Chinese origin on a street near the Damascus Gate, this Friday in Jerusalem. Alvaro García
An ultra-Orthodox Jew plays the guitar on Jaffa Street next to a group of police officers in Jerusalem this Tuesday. Alvaro García
A young woman armed with a rifle walks down Jaffa Street in Jerusalem this Friday. Alvaro Garcia
A tram at a stop on Jaffa Street, one of Jerusalem’s longest and most important streets. Alvaro García
Two Orthodox Jews pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Alvaro García
Two children play in front of one of the many closed shops in the Old City of Jerusalem. Alvaro García
A man smokes a pipe on the terrace of a place near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem this Friday. Alvaro García
A souvenir shop in the Old City of Jerusalem. Since the conflict began, tourism in the city has disappeared. Alvaro Garcia
Two Orthodox men and a Muslim meet each other on the street that separates the eastern and western parts of Jerusalem. Alvaro Garcia
One of the entrances to the Esplanade of Mosques, a place of Muslim worship, in the Old City of Jerusalem. Alvaro García
A family walks down Jaffa Street in central Jerusalem. Alvaro García
Believers lean back in front of the stone on which Jesus Christ was anointed before his burial. Inside the Sanctuary of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem. Alvaro García
Orthodox Jews pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Alvaro Garcia
A hairdresser waits for customers in his shop in the Old City of Jerusalem.Álvaro García
People walk past a street stall selling fruit and vegetables near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem on Friday. Alvaro García
Orthodox Jews pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Alvaro García
A Muslim woman in a butcher shop in the Old City of Jerusalem. Alvaro García
The Damascus Gate, one of the entrances to the Old City of Jerusalem.Álvaro García
An ultra-Orthodox Jew shops at the Mahaned Yehuda market in Jerusalem this Friday. Alvaro García
View of the Stone Dome, central monument of the Esplanade of Mosques, place of worship for Muslims in Jerusalem. Alvaro García
The Bank of Israel believes the war will not end until mid- to late December. The economy has been hit hard by the fighting in Gaza, cutting this year’s growth forecast to 2.3% from 3% and the shekel has already devalued by almost 10% against the dollar and euro. However, Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron assures that the economy remains stable and resilient. “He has already recovered quickly after going through more difficult times in the past,” he recalled to the newspaper Jediot Ahronot.
Argentinian-born engineer Ricardo Grichener, 56, has fired the 500 Palestinians who worked at the factories he ran in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel. “We have nothing to do with them anymore. “After what happened, I don’t see any political solution possible.” The 140,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and the more than 18,000 from Gaza with work permits in Israel have not been able to go to their workplaces since the 7th. His nephew Omer Wonked, 22, a head waiter at a restaurant in Tel Aviv, was also kidnapped at the Supernova festival.
“We know he is alive, he appears tied up in a picture on Hamas social networks,” he warns. “Our troops must continue to advance in Gaza and destroy the terrorists until Omer is liberated. “What Hamas did was a crazy glorification of death, like the Nazis,” Grichener claims in front of the central public library in Tel Aviv, where relatives of those abducted in Gaza gather daily on the esplanade of the cultural complex that houses the headquarters from there are the opera and the museum for modern art.
A few hundred meters away, on the large avenue dedicated to Ibn Gabirol, the Jewish philosopher and poet born in Malaga a millennium ago, all the tables in the Benz restaurant are occupied on Thursday afternoon, at the start of the weekend in Israel. “Half of the waiters are now in the army, we had to turn to relatives to avoid closure,” explains Maya Benz, manager of the restaurant, in the middle of the relaxed nighttime hustle and bustle in Tel Aviv, 70 kilometers as the crow flies from the capital Gaza, where the fear generated by activated anti-aircraft alarms is cyclical.
In Jerusalem, about 85 kilometers from Gaza City, sirens wail sporadically. The central Jaffa Street is also busy again on Thursday evening. In the packed Newman cafeteria, customers line up in front of four employees to buy burekas, meat or cheese empanadas and coffee to go.
A clothing store in central Jerusalem, last Friday. Alvaro Garcia
Daniel Kupervaser, a 77-year-old economist, recognizes that the word “frustration” best reflects his feelings since the beginning of the war and the suffering that came with it. “The concern for our loved ones, the helplessness in the face of a possible uncontrollable tragedy, accompany us day and night,” he reflects in an exchange of text messages from Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. In his house he welcomes relatives from Kibbutz Or Haner on the northern border of the Gaza Strip. “The rest of my family is still at home and regularly runs to the shelters,” he explains. “The entire routine is changed and conditioned. Work is being severely impacted by the situation and schools for my grandchildren are gradually resuming operations, depending on the availability of accommodation.”
Double school shift
In Eilat, a tourist town between Egypt and Jordan at the foot of the Gulf of Aqaba, the population has doubled due to the arrival of more than 60,000 civilians displaced by the war from areas bordering the Palestinian territory and Lebanon. They were moved to luxury hotels on the Red Sea coast. Minors had to be enrolled in school with the same urgency. To achieve this, teaching activity in schools was doubled in the morning and afternoon shifts.
Meanwhile, in the Israeli countryside, labor has disappeared after Asian immigrants sought repatriation after the conflict broke out. Hundreds of volunteers from the cities have replaced them with urgent tasks such as picking fruit or milking dairy cows. Computer engineer Ishai Atsmov, 52, was working on the farm at Kibbutz Mirim on Thursday morning, less than two kilometers from the Gaza Strip, an area that produces 20% of the entire country’s milk. Wearing a flak jacket and combat helmet, he traveled with other volunteers from Haifa Province (northern Israel). “It’s not the first time I’ve come. “The cows are not to blame for what is happening,” he jokes, shortly after he had to take shelter in an animal shelter after the alarm was raised about the firing of Qasam rockets from the Gaza Strip.
Smiling Nir Zerav, 33, head of a fishmonger at the traditional Mahane Yehuda market in central Jerusalem, tells us in good Spanish how the war has deterred many customers but has not affected sales. “Those who are coming now are hoarding food in the expectation that the war will drag on and the distribution chains will fail,” he explains. “But what has changed most is the presence of armed people, many carrying assault rifles instead of pistols,” he warns. Since October 7, more than 120,000 Israelis have applied for a “private” gun license, according to data from the Ministry of National Security, which leads police activities, cited by The Jerusalem Post newspaper, which reported that there are no more places for the exercise in shooting clubs. The Netanyahu government allows the possession of twice as much ammunition, up to 100 rounds, and has lowered licensing requirements. It had been almost a decade, during the 2014 Gaza war, since so many weapons were seen on the streets of Israel.
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