TEL AVIV, Israel
Israelis celebrated Independence Day in Tel Aviv on Tuesday amid its months-long war in Gaza and concern over the fate of remaining hostages.
As with previous years,
Israelis celebrated the day – this year marked from Monday evening through
Tuesday – with barbecues filling up entire parks across the country.
But in the shadow of the
conflict in Gaza and immediately after the country marked an emotional Memorial
Day, the normally raucous parties were subdued, as families grappled with their
desire to mark the event as the country faces one of its most difficult tests
in decades.
“We don’t want to show Hamas
that they can win. We want to show them that we are strong and we want to show
them that our country is important for us and to show them that we still go
out, we still live our lives.” saysShiri Simon, a Tel Aviv resident.
With the trauma of Oct. 7
looming large, each day is expected to feel dramatically different from
previous years.
Roughly 1,200 people were
killed that day, about a quarter of them soldiers, and another 250 were taken
captive in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities. The attack sparked the war,
now in its eighth month, which has killed more than 34,700 Palestinians, most
of them women and children, according to local health officials.
The militants stormed past
Israel’s vaunted defenses, bursting through a border fence, blinding
surveillance cameras and battling the country’s first line of defense soldiers,
many of whom were outnumbered. Itay Chen, an Israeli-American, was one of them.
Militants reached roughly 20
different locations in southern Israel, stretching into cities beyond the belt
of farming communities that straddles Gaza. It took hours for the region’s most
powerful military to send reinforcements to the area and days for it to clear
all the militants.
The attack shook Israel to its
core. It shattered the broad trust the country’s Jewish population has long
placed in the military, which has compulsory enlistment for most Jewish
18-year-olds.
Israelis are wondering what
the right way to celebrate is — and whether there is much to celebrate at all.
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