Various locations in Israel – The events of October 7 deeply shook Israeli society.
Within hours, Israel had launched a relentless aerial bombardment of Gaza. Within days, hundreds of thousands of reservists were called into service. Within weeks, a ground operation of the enclave was underway.
Israel has said its goal is to destroy Hamas and free captives taken by its fighters to Gaza. Western observers have doubled down on the label “terrorist” to describe Hamas and the #HamasisISIS trend on social media, comparing the group to the armed group ISIL (ISIS).
Announcing myself as an Tel Aviv Tribune journalist became increasingly difficult. Many people in Israel considered him the “voice of the enemy,” as one man told me. Others simply politely refused to speak.
Across Israel, people who agreed to speak to me described what they saw as an irrevocable change after October 7 in who they perceived to be “the enemy.” Often it was Hamas specifically, but sometimes it was a broader group: Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims.
The day their lives changed
Sheltered from the merciless sun by an imposing concrete seaside hotel, adults lay on rickety benches, children howled with laughter as they chased each other around a dilapidated courtyard in the city of Eilat, in southern Israel on a sweltering November afternoon.
All members of the same family, they had been evacuated from their homes near the Gaza Strip as the Israeli assault continued.
They recalled the fear they felt on October 7. It was a day that changed their lives forever, they said; they were now in limbo, waiting until their area was deemed safe enough to return.
Nachum, a man in his 30s, said he lost one of his best friends during the Supernova festival, an electronic music event in southern Israel that was attacked by Hamas fighters on October 7. An Israeli police report indicates that 364 people were killed there. the festival and 40 were kidnapped.
“Do you think it will be a long war? » I asked him. “I hope so because I want Gaza to disappear,” he replied definitively.
“Did you feel this way before October 7,” I asked. “All the time, all the time,” he said.
Along the town’s picturesque waterfront, Linor, 30, walked with her younger sister and their children. They had spent a few days on the Red Sea coast to escape the sirens of continuous air raids that wailed in their village near the border with Gaza.
She exuded confidence, her hair in thick bangs contrasting with her clean-shaven sides. But when she explained why she had come to the seaside, her expression softened and emotion appeared on her face.
Her husband’s cousin, a young woman she described as “an angel” who spent her free time playing the piano, was killed on the morning of October 7. She was just one of around 1,200 Israeli and foreign nationals, mostly civilians, who were killed. That day. Linor said she died in her pajamas, a detail she said highlighted the brutality of the Hamas attack.
Linor did not direct his anger at the Palestinians in Gaza. She said her family had always had good relations with the Gazans who worked in the olive groves around their home. Her family had often visited Gaza when she was young. Her mother bought her wedding dress in a store in Gaza City.
“Hamas is the only difference between us and them,” she said. “Our soldiers want to keep us safe. Hamas wants to use Gaza residents as human shields.
“I have Arab friends, I feel sorry for them too”
On a quiet residential street in the city of Ashdod, Yulia, a 38-year-old Russian Israeli woman, sat outside a small bar she owns with her Ukrainian husband.
She had previously served in the Israeli forces but was not involved in operations in Gaza because she had to care for her young child.
Hamas must go, she said, adding that she believed they had stolen money intended for the people of Gaza.
Slowly, her language changed and she spoke in broader terms about “problems” with Muslims and Arabs, categorizations she used interchangeably to refer to Palestinians. Her language was vague but what she was implying was clear. Hamas is not solely responsible for the events of October 7.
“I understand their mentality,” she said knowingly, but chose not to elaborate.
A few steps away, in the city’s residential center, Shila, a soft-spoken 25-year-old florist, was preparing an elaborate bouquet.
Admitting there was no real need to come to work because there were so few customers, she said it was important to stay busy. She also spoke of the country’s collective pain after October 7.
“Pain,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “We couldn’t understand that it was possible.”
Today, when she looks at the port of Ashdod and sees a ship she doesn’t recognize, she is filled with anxiety, fearing another Hamas attack.
“We are afraid of the people who come from Gaza,” she admitted.
It’s a sentiment that doesn’t sit well with her, and she clearly draws a line between civilians and Hamas.
“I would like that, without Hamas, we could live alongside the Palestinians.”
It’s a distinction she said she feels, however, that many others in her town no longer share. “I have Arab (Palestinian) friends; I feel sorry for them too. It’s going to be difficult to be Arab (Palestinian) in this country now.”
A stone’s throw from Shila’s colorful flower shop, Jarin, a talkative 21-year-old Israeli of Georgian descent, manned the cash register at his family’s convenience store.
Behind him, an Israeli news channel broadcast endless footage of the ongoing war.
He said the Hamas attack on southern Israel left him in a deep state of shock.
People came from Gaza to work and stock up on goods from his store.
He would not have described any of them as his friends, but relations had been friendly. Since October 7, he says, they have been permanently destroyed.
“They (Palestinians in Gaza) ate here, worked here, cleaned our trash. How can you eat from here and want to kill me?
He shook his head as he packed a customer’s bag. “Maybe before there was a chance (to live together). But now, no.
Generational trauma
In Tel Aviv, a woman working at an upscale hotel who described herself as a “lefty” said she avoided drivers with Palestinian names on Gett, an Israeli taxi app.
She was ashamed and asked me not to use her name. She added that it was a sign that something “broke” on October 7.
She said Israeli Jews suffer generational trauma from the Holocaust and that the events of that day triggered an emotional response.
A young woman, dressed in linen clothing, sipped coffee and smoked outside a trendy Tel Aviv cafe. She did not want her name printed on Tel Aviv Tribune’s website, but admitted she was still thinking about her emotional reaction to October 7.
Some of what she feels doesn’t align with her left-wing principles, she said, adding that it’s too early to know where she’ll end up.
