Like a Bad Dream: Sudden War and Then Back to Everyday Life

From June 13 to 24, Israel was in an open and direct military confrontation with Iran. The war ended just as suddenly as it began. As a resident of Jerusalem, my everyday life was completely turned upside down from one day to the next. Now, a few days after the ceasefire came into force, the state of emergency has officially ended and we are supposed to return to our normal lives.

Two hours after I had said goodbye to a friend on the phone, at three o’clock in the morning, the air raid siren went off all over Israel. Confused, I looked at my phone, but it didn’t register an attack. Basically, the alarms of the last few days and weeks have not been particularly worrying, as most of them came from one or two aging ballistic missiles from the Houthis in Yemen and were mostly intercepted outside Israeli territory. We usually had an alert once a day somewhere in the country, mostly in the Tel Aviv area, which nobody really took seriously. But this night-time alarm felt different.

I went back to sleep a little restless, only to wake up the next day to the news that Israel had started attacking Iran at exactly three o’clock in the morning. It immediately became clear that we were in a new phase of the current tensions in the Middle East. I recalled that in the days leading up to the attack, there had been increasing speculation that such an action might be imminent. I had dismissed it with the words that similar thoughts kept coming up, which in the end had not materialized.

Everything turned upside down

But now we were at direct war with Iran. It is not as if the war between Israel and Iran had broken out for the first time. Iran is the main sponsor of the three terrorist organizations Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis – the so-called “Axis of Resistance” – which threaten Israel militarily from the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Yemen and attack it time and again. October 7, 2023 could not have happened without Iran. Hezbollah would hardly have been able to dominate Lebanon without Iran. The Houthis would hardly have been able to take power in parts of Yemen without Iran. All three organizations have made it their declared goal to wipe out the state of Israel. This is also a core concern of the Mullah regime in Iran.

On June 13, Israel used the strategic window in which it had air supremacy over Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon was barely able to act, Iran’s negotiations with the USA over a nuclear deal promised to fail and hardly anyone expected this massive escalation of the conflict on Israel’s part. In familiar fashion, the first waves of attacks on the Persian country, which is more than 1,000 kilometers away, were meticulously prepared and revealed immense knowledge about military and nuclear infrastructure as well as the whereabouts of the regime’s most senior political figures.

Of course, the retaliatory strikes were not long in coming. But while Israel used a lot of air power and precision strikes, the Iranian actions focused on explosive drones and ballistic missiles of varying power. Unlike the Yemeni salvos, in this case there was no doubt in my mind that I would take any alarm seriously and go to the shelter under the apartment. With the news of the situation, directives were issued to the Israeli population that workplaces, universities and schools, as well as other public places, were to be closed until further notice. People were asked to stay away from crowds and stay close to shelters.

Through the war with friends

My best friend Annalie always spends the night with me from Friday to Saturday at normal times so that we can celebrate Shabbat properly. We either invite ourselves to a Shabbat dinner or look for a place where we can enjoy this evening at the end of the week with good food and great company. For June 13, we had already invited 13 people, planned the food, shopped for it and prepared the content of the evening. However, together with our friends, a pastor and his wife, we had to revise our decision to meet at their home. Instead, after some back and forth, we invited them to my place. The friends who live nearby and were willing to take the risk came. We actually managed to finish dinner before the first rocket alarm interrupted the round and forced us to gather in the bunker under my landlady’s apartment. The siren sounded one more time that evening before our brave guests left the house.

Time with friends became particularly valuable and necessary. Everyone stayed at home and had to keep their spirits up somehow. That’s why we invited our friends over for an evening of worship during the week. Of course, we always started by talking about the latest developments in the war. So I was very grateful when someone brought up the subject of “movies” and we asked all around who had which favorite movies and which Marvel parts were the funniest or most entertaining. Guardians of the Galaxy came out very well! In between, we stood together on the balcony and stared up at the night sky while we awaited the Iranian fireworks. On another day, we met in the large garden of the student village to play spikeball in bearable afternoon temperatures. And yet another evening, we invited two friends over for watermelon cocktails and homemade honey liqueur to celebrate the friend’s 30^th birthday.

Annalie moved in with me during the whole time because I have a second bed in my room and a shelter under the apartment. She normally lives in a room near the Damascus Gate, the building of which does not have a bunker. But the main reason for this decision was not so much safety concerns, but rather our mutual need to go through this time together. This contributed significantly to the unique dynamic of the war days, as we went to bed and got up at the same time, shopped and cooked, ran to the bunker and exchanged the latest news together.

Alarm, safe room, going back to sleep

Iran preferred to attack in the late evening or in the middle of the night. So we hardly had a night that we could sleep through completely. In addition, the system of air alarms here in the country was recently changed so that we receive an early warning a few minutes before the actual alarm and we can go straight to the shelter in the event of a siren. These sounds are the most effective alarm clocks, I can tell you that. As soon as the phone goes off in that familiar way, I’m awake and sitting bolt upright in bed. Not a second is wasted, my body is immediately ready to flee. When the siren sounds in the city, I throw on a robe, grab my glasses and keys, slip on my slippers and make my way out of the apartment one floor below.

In the tiny bunker, which honestly doesn’t look super confidence-inspiring, we sat with the neighbors for 15 to 20 minutes, giggling about some unfunny incident, and then shuffled back to bed. If the alarm went off after seven o’clock, it acted as an alarm clock, so to speak, and then there was no question of going back to sleep. So you can imagine that a lack of sleep, coupled with an above-average amount of adrenaline, accumulated over the days and made the week even more difficult to organize.

Israelis don’t stay cooped up in their homes for long. The city may have been mostly deserted for a day or two. But after a few days, most people had already adapted to the situation. After all, life has to go on. I was also amazed at how quickly I could “get used” to such a state of war myself. Air alerts were accepted with a shrug of the shoulders, we only went into the bunker if our region was actually affected, otherwise we marveled at the interception of ballistic missiles in the night sky – it really is spectacular!

But even despite the new war routine, there was no thought of serious work. Until the whole spook was over, I couldn’t concentrate for the life of me. Instead, I had to constantly follow the news and keep up to date with the options for leaving the country. Some friends and acquaintances traveled overnight to Egypt or Jordan to catch a flight from there. The Israeli airport in Tel Aviv was understandably completely closed at first and could only be used for very few evacuation flights afterwards. My everyday life was completely disrupted by hectic nights and news of destruction, suffering and death not far from me, which I had to deal with somehow, and now there was also uncertainty about when I would leave the country. In the end, the war was over faster than Germany could evacuate its citizens.

And suddenly back to normal?

World War III was on everyone’s lips and, with the US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, it was also within reach. And suddenly it was said that a ceasefire had been reached. And it has actually held so far. So we were thrown back into “normal” life. From one day to the next, all restrictions on public life were lifted and stores and schools reopened. Annalie moved back into her room on the day of the ceasefire and buses and trains are running normally. Even the swimming pool has reopened.

Outside, the mood is as if nothing has happened. And yet many things are very different. Many people of other nationalities have left the country, sometimes in a hurry. And my inner life can’t really keep up with the whole story. I think my brain is still pretty confused. And it will probably take a few more days for me to regain my previous strength. At the same time, I’m already wondering whether those days actually happened or whether it was all just a bad dream. There are hardly any words to describe how unreal it all feels.

If you want figures on deaths, injuries and destruction in both countries, take a look at this article. For now, the shooting between Israel and Iran has ended, but certainly not for good. The war in Gaza continues and is claiming countless lives. There are still 50 Israeli hostages in the hands of Hamas, at least 27 of them dead. Lord, have mercy!