After the Hamas invasion on October 7, Doron Shabty and his wife and their two small children hid in Sderot, near the Gaza border, and survived. Als reservist bij de infanterie ging hij de volgende dag het leger in.
Hij is net teruggekeerd na meer dan 100 dagen in Gaza, nadat hij vrienden had verloren. De 31-jarige Shabty, die zichzelf politiek links ziet, zei dat hij geen gevoel van wraak voelde, zelfs als andere soldaten dat wel hadden. Nor did he justify every act of the Israeli army, expressing his sorrow for the many thousands of Gazans who died in the fight against Hamas.
But he said he was confident that in order to restore Israelis' confidence in their country's ability to protect them, there can be no return to the situation of October 6. dat”, zei hij. “En om Gaza te ontwapenen, moet je een verschrikkelijke prijs betalen.”
The shock of October 7 was emotional, physical and psychological, undermining the idea of security, both personal and national, and reminding Israelis that they have powerful enemies next door who wish them dead.
Four months into the war, with mounting deaths, hostages still held by Hamas and no clear victory in sight, their own pain has numbed many Israelis to the suffering of Gaza's residents, let alone the pain of Palestinian civilians van Israël zelf.
Gaza's health ministry says more than 28,000 Gazans have been killed in the war, mostly civilians, although the figures do not distinguish between them and fighters. Israeli officials say the number of deaths far exceeds the number of Israeli deaths since October 7, when some 1,200 people were killed. A total of 779 civilians, including 76 foreigners, and 633 soldiers and police officers have been killed in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, according to the latest cumulative Israeli figures. Meer dan honderd mensen worden door Hamas gevangen gehouden.
While Israel's Western allies generally view the start of the war as justified, Israel's conduct in the war has been widely criticized given the civilian toll given the Hamas invasion. South Africa has brought charges of genocide, which have been rejected by Israel, while even President Biden has called the Israeli military operation “exaggerated.”
But accompanied by a powerful new sense of Israel's vulnerability, Israel's attitude toward the war, which Israeli Jews overwhelmingly support, is shaping virtually all their hopes for the future. Dat zal waarschijnlijk nog lange tijd zo blijven, zeggen deskundigen en Israëli's zelf.
Diplomats are again talking of a two-state solution, but Israelis and Palestinians, both traumatized, have little faith in it and little trust in each other.
“Elke Israëliër ziet zichzelf als een gijzelaarsfamilie”, zegt Yossi Klein Halevi, senior fellow bij het Shalom Hartman Institute. “We zijn allemaal gijzelaars”, aldus de slogans op de reclameborden en in de supermarkten. “And emotionally that is true,” he said.
“We saw ourselves as a safe haven for Jewish people, saving Israelis and Jews in danger, and that was the best part of ourselves,” Mr. Halevi added. “Dus de aanhoudende gruwel van de gijzeling en onze hulpeloosheid kwellen ons.”
“Yet we cannot say that while we exist in this traumatized Israeli society, where the vast majority are simply in a state of hatred and revenge, almost like an ecstasy of destruction,” she said.
dat vrede en een inclusieve samenleving bevordert. But even she thinks she should be careful with what she says. “You are constantly being tested,” she said.
Recently, a Jewish colleague of her husband's made a comment about how Israel had been “so gracious” in ensuring Gazans had food and water, she said.
“It was so provocative. Maak je een grapje?” ze zei. “Het provoceert ons om te zien of we zouden reageren, en natuurlijk zouden we niet reageren of het risico lopen.”
When the war started, her mother said she had to take all their savings and said: 'Please leave. I don't want you here. “
Mevrouw Abed zweeg even. “That broke my heart,” she said. “I know my mother doesn't want me to go.” She and her husband discussed it. “It is now clearer than ever,” she says. “This is my house; this is my country. We will never leave.”
“People see that they still want to destroy us,” he said. “There is more anti -Semitism, a feeling of not a safe place for a Jew. And the most important mission of Israel is protecting Jews, and now this is the most dangerous place for a Jew to be. ”
The nagging vulnerability seemed like an ultrasound of the past, Bernard Avishai, an American-Israeli professor and analyst, agreed.
“Er is een groeiende erkenning dat Israël zich op de rand van een vulkaan bevindt, zoals het was tussen 1948 en 1967”, zei hij, opnieuw omringd door vijanden. “So everything really feels existential.”
Maar de Israëlische nieuwsmedia tonen weliswaar regelmatig verwoestingen in Gaza, maar concentreren zich ook op Israëls eigen doden, en minder op de burgertol in Gaza. The death of every Israeli soldier is steeped in media attention, including images of funerals and grieving relatives. In the same way, photos of the hostages made by Hamas are omnipresent in supermarkets and bus stops.
“Er heerst overal een ziekelijk gevoel van dood,” zei de heer Avishai, en het enorme aantal slachtoffers in Gaza veroorzaakt “een overeenkomstige gevoelloosheid.” One day three Israeli soldiers are killed, the next day, he said. 'Do I have to feel worse than yesterday? But yesterday I felt terrible. And if they are 50 Palestinians instead of 20? Er komt een punt dat wat de verbeelding niet kan bevatten, later een film zal worden over één persoon die ons allemaal aan het huilen zal maken.”
polls They show enormous support for Hamas on the West Bank and in Gaza, he said.
But the polls show both sides. The last From the University of Tel Aviv “is a study of hopelessness,” says Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli survey and analyst.
Ondanks de steun van president Biden steunt slechts 27 procent van de Joodse Israëli's een tweestatenoplossing, en 38 procent steunt de annexatie van de Westelijke Jordaanoever en Gaza, met beperkte rechten voor de Palestijnen. (In the same way, Only 24 percent of the Palestinians support a two -state solution.)
“The Israeli and Palestinian peoples are under pressure until the breaking point, or they are already broken,” said Mrs. Scheindlin. “Everyone is unimaginably traumatized, and suffering continues every day.”
Ofer, een soldaat die net terug is van reservedienst in het noorden en die vroeg om zijn achternaam niet te publiceren om zijn familie te beschermen, zei dat er altijd de overtuiging was dat Israël, indien nodig, Hezbollah en Hamas, evenals Iran, zou kunnen destroy.
“Maar nu we carte blanche hebben in een oorlog in Gaza, is het duidelijk dat we dat niet kunnen,” zei hij, “en hetzelfde geldt voor Hezbollah, en dat is een grote verandering. Ik heb het gevoel dat we schaakmat staan, in Gaza in bedwang worden gehouden door Libanon en in Libanon in bedwang worden gehouden door Iran en Syrië. The country is absolutely more vulnerable. “
Naomi Sternberg, 27, is the child of an Italian mother and an Argentinian father who emigrated to Israel and met when they learned Hebrew. Born after the murder of Yitzhak Rabin, she grew up, “she said,” with a feeling of endless war and no peace on the horizon. “
Since her three years in the army – “wasted three years,” she said – she has been working with Israeli and Palestinian women to bridge the deep differences between them. “When Israeli women talk about conflict, they talk about safety, but when Palestinian women speak, it's about justice,” she said.
Now, after October 7, she wonders: “Have we as Jews been sentenced to a life that is uncertain?” She is angry, she said, because “this could have been prevented with peace.”
She wonders how much space there will be to argue for a peace based on partnership, rather than on divorce. “Even the left is talking about separation now,” she said. “But this paradigm leads us to where we are now with the inhabitants of Gaza – we completely dehuman each other.”
Mrs Abbed believes, just like Mrs. Sternberg, that two states are essential for two peoples, but untenable without 'real healing and reconciliation'.
“My struggle for liberation is that I and every Palestinian can live freely where he or she wants to hear,” she said. “Israel is my home, this is my country, and correct democracy would respect that, and let me experience what it is like to be a Palestinian in Israel.”
Just like Mrs. Abed, Mrs. Sternberg does not intend to give up the fight for a better Israel.
“Violence leaves so little room for dreamers to thrive,” she said sadly. “We proud naive people are now not only considered as traitors, but also as stupid, which is almost even worse.”
“But with all my energy,” she said, “we have to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and now I feel more motivated than ever to do that.”
reporting contributed.