Air raid sirens blared in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning as, for the first time, Hezbollah fired a surface-to-surface missile at the coastal city. A few minutes after the incident, beachgoers flooded the bustling promenade, playing beach volley, cycling and kite surfing.
“Was there an attack this morning?” asked Eyal Kadosh, 31, confused, while resting on a bench with a friend after their daily workout. “Well, I’m here, what should happen will happen anyway.”
Despite the looming prospect of an all-out conflict with Hezbollah, as an intense bombing campaign inside Lebanon stretched into a fourth day, the lives of Tel Avivians seem unaffected, consumed by a sense of near invulnerability. The unprecedented attack did not appear to burst what is sometimes seen as the city’s bubble while conflict rages elsewhere.
“I went to the shelter as soon as I heard the air siren, but I’m not afraid,” said Ravit, a 28-year-old teacher, on the promenade. “I think the Hezbollah threat is like others we have faced before. But I believe in our army, and as long as they tell me I can go to the beach, I will go to the beach.”
Tel Aviv, known to some in Israel as “the state of Tel Aviv”, with its luxury hotels and restaurants and its vibrant nightlife, has a reputation as a place to escape the Israel-Palestinian crisis. When the city hosted the Eurovision song contest in 2019, against a backdrop of a three-day conflict that claimed the lives of 23 Palestinians and four Israelis in the southern region, contestants never skipped a beat.
“We are used to life under these threats,” said Jonatan, 28, “Last night I went out and I knew that some rockets might come, but I thought: what’s the difference if I stay at home?”
“Part of it is also geography,” said Yoni, 33. “Being at centre, far from the threats from the south in Gaza and far from the north with Hezbollah in Lebanon, we always felt relatively safer here.”
Tel Aviv, boasting the country’s stock exchange, a high concentration of tech enterprises and esteemed cultural establishments, has always stood as a stronghold for Israeli liberals.
In the aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October last year, in which 1,200 people died and about 250 were kidnapped, the city became the “capital of hostages” as protesters flooded its streets daily to demand a deal for the return of those held captive in Gaza.
Demonstrators blocked roads, lit fires and clashed with police, who often used water cannon to disperse the crowds.
For months, Tel Aviv was the most vibrant political voice across the country. Every day, thousands assembled in a bustling public plaza outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art known as Hostages Square, where a Shabbat table was set up surrounded by about 200 vacant chairs symbolising those who had been captured.
Hundreds of people queued at stands selling T-shirts, flags and merchandise bearing the rallying cry “Bring them home NOW”. Then, slowly, the mood changed.
On Wednesday evening, Hostages Square was desolately empty. Despite protesters continuing to gather in the plaza at weekends, few believe in the sudden return of the hostages. As the anniversary approaches of the attack that triggered a war that has disrupted the lives of millions, hope for a deal between Hamas and the Israeli government seems to have almost entirely vanished from the media.
The protest lived on as dozens of young women and men gathered near the exit of an underpass next to the IDF headquarters in downtown Tel Aviv, blocking hundreds of vehicles while silently displaying photos of the hostages.
Meanwhile, Yigal, a 35-year-old lawyer, sat in the nearly deserted square bar surrounded by vacant tables. “Until a few months ago, people here in Tel Aviv still had hope to put pressure on the government, but things have changed,” he said. “Today we have even stopped talking about Gaza, and Lebanon is almost the only topic of discussion.”
Yonathan, 35, said: “We are under threat from different fronts. As much as the hostage deal is crucial, I feel like the priorities have changed in this country.”