Amid tensions, Israelis follow a war routine: Live life, wait for what comes

Coffee shops in the Ramat Aviv mall in the north of Tel Aviv, an upmarket residential neighborhood, were bustling with the usual activity Wednesday morning.

People lined up to order cappuccinos and sandwiches, while others chatted around tables, clasping their warm mugs.

Israelis are doing what they normally do: working, studying, celebrating family events, and going to beaches and museums.

But they are also waiting, bracing for the heavy retaliation promised by Hezbollah and Iran for the killings of top Hezbollah and Hamas officials in Beirut and Tehran last week. It could trigger the most serious multifront conflict in the region in decades.

Meital Elmalem, a resident of Kibbutz Gaash, in the center of the country, was ordering a soy cappuccino at a coffee counter at the mall, accompanied by her 12-year-old daughter.

“We always come here to shop,” she says, describing the mall as feeling normal. “After Oct. 7, our approach is ‘What will be, will be.’”

Her husband’s brother, Matan Elmalem, a DJ at the Nova music festival, was killed by Hamas that day, she says. “What can be worse than that? We must continue living.”

She points out her necklace with a pendant in the shape of headphones that she and her family wear in memory of her deceased brother-in-law.

“After he died, we got a call from a jeweler who said that Matan had ordered this pendant, but never got to wear it,” she says. “So we made copies for everyone.”

She says all leaders in charge in Israel on Oct. 7 will need to resign eventually, but for now, “all our energy must be channeled to deal with those who don’t want us here, including Iran and Hezbollah. We need to attack them ... not sit and wait.”

Resolve and resignation

The mood in Israel – exactly 10 months since the start of the war Oct. 7, when Hamas crossed the border from Gaza killing and kidnapping Israelis – is one of resolve and resignation, as Western nations scramble to prevent the war in Gaza from spreading.  

The latest deadly build-up followed a rocket attack from Lebanon that killed 12 children in a Druze village in the Golan Heights. In response, Israel assassinated Fouad Shukur, a senior Hezbollah chief in Beirut. Hours later, Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran after attending the inauguration of Iran’s new president.

This threatened escalation has left many Israelis internalizing what John Lennon crooned: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” as an Army Radio commentator said Wednesday. 

Kindergarten assistant Yona Dorani was waiting in a supermarket line at the mall Wednesday. Her cart was brimming with goods, including half a watermelon, wet wipes, vegetables, bread, and crackers.

“I am not shopping because of the war,” she says. “This is my regular cart, as my children and grandchildren come to me every week for Shabbat,” she says, referring to the traditional Friday night dinner. She will be cooking the usual feast of chicken schnitzel and stuffed peppers.

Ms. Dorani says she fears an escalation but has not done much to prepare, except to buy extra water and candles.

“Things are not pleasant,” she says. “But we have been walking around with this feeling since Oct. 7.”

Looking for safety

To the north, in Haifa, which has been generally safe from rockets, tensions are high. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly threatened to attack the port city, along with its army bases and industrial facilities.

Mira Awwad, a management consultant at a firm in Tel Aviv and mother to two young children, moved back to Israel in December after two years with her family working and studying in New York. She and her husband, Maroun, an ophthalmologist, had planned their move back to Israel way before the Oct. 7 attack.

The family has lived in Haifa, Mr. Awwad’s birthplace, for the past half-year.

“The return to Israel from the U.S. has been complicated and challenging,” says Ms. Awwad, who was born in Nazareth. “It is a most terrifying time for me, because Haifa is likely to be a main target,” she says.

As events escalated, she equipped her home with food, water, baby supplies, and other necessities, including an electric generator. On Saturday she decided to move her children to Nazareth, to live with her mother.

“The uncertainty has been very high, because on the one hand I feel Nazareth may be safer than other areas, but on the other hand it may be less protected. My mother’s building is old and has no safe room, and if there is a rocket alarm we will have to seek protection under the stairwell,” Ms. Awwad says.

Since Monday, she has also moved in with her mother, from where she will be working remotely, while her husband will continue commuting from Haifa to his work at a hospital in Hadera.

“I hope everyone will try not to escalate things,” she says. “I feel we are waiting for something bad, [but] we don’t know how bad,” she says.

“But I believe that from all this year and from this situation, something good maybe will come out. For all sides, it is not a sustainable situation,” she says. “Somethings should change, I hope for the better.”

Wartime perspective

Lior Komemy, who is studying social work at Haifa University, says she may be complacent or in denial, because she hasn’t prepared her apartment, which she shares with a partner, for an escalation.

“I am very stressed because I don’t have a safe room and there are no shelters nearby, so I don’t really know what I should do,” she says. “I guess I will believe it is happening only once it happens.”

She is critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not advancing a deal for the hostages’ release that could also lead to the end of the war. “The end of the war is not even an aim,” she says.

Ms. Komemy says she plans to stay in Haifa to study for her upcoming exams. “At least the war helps put things in perspective,” she says with a laugh. “I am not that stressed about my exams now.”

Back at the supermarket in the Ramat Aviv mall, Lisa Danino was stocking a large fridge with yogurts.

“People have been buying more water, cans, crackers, dry foods, and soy-based drinks and yogurts that don’t require refrigeration,” she says. “We can be heroes all we like, but when there is uncertainty, of course we are scared. But what can we do?” she asks.

“There is a sort of routine alongside the war,” she says. “We are ready. This country is always ready for war.”