How Israel Transformed From Free To Feared After October 7 (image X @yaelbt)
While Netanyahu’s force is pummeling Gaza to ashes, report says Israel is residing under constant trepidation of attack. Since the “unprecedented” attack from Hamas on October 7th, the Israeli population in the land of occupied Palestine lost their peace. Israelis are “traumatized” that the resistance group of Gaza will barge in again and their security forces might fail once again in preventing the attack.
The Israeli children are now chaperoned round the clock. Self-defense classes and gun license in the region has mounted dramatically. “This is the natural reaction to the shock we are going through”, said future studies professor at Bar Ilan University, David Passig to Bloomberg. Passig said he had a weapon for the past 35 years and had kept it locked away except for mandatory reasons, but now he is “walking around with it”.
Though not fully visible, the political impact of the Netanyahu government’s failure in identifying and stopping the Hamas invasion will be greater than expected. Polls from the region shows disillusionment of the Israeli population towards Benjamin Netanyahu and a visible shift towards the more centrist competitor of him, Benny Gantz, who is also part of the newly formed war cabinet.
Though the Palestinians were living in a tightly packed neighborhood known as the “largest open-air prison” in their own land, the Israeli settlers were offered to roam around freely without fear in the Palestinian land. The equation has seen a major shift since the latest Hamas attack. The number of Israelis applying for license was reported to be 260,000, and new requests each day is highly surpassing those who received the license each week before the war started.
Bloomberg quoted Tara, who lives in Jerusalem as saying, “I am way more paranoid. If I am at a red light I don’t turn my back on anyone”. The increased authorization of weaponries to civilians may have other consequences. Known for the history of communal violence, the possibility of greater violence than expected is high in Israel.
Israel boasted about the most efficient defense system. Buildings within the region were routinely equipped with bomb shelter as a protection from militant outfits including Hamas resistance group, who was designated as terrorist by Israel and its allies including US and European Union.
But on October 7th, when thousands of rockets were launched from Gaza, those protective shelters were not enough as Hamas members charged in through those doors leaving the Israelis with no place to run to. The settler occupation has now took it upon themselves to find methods to ensure their safety. New products for serving the said purpose are available on the commercial market, or home made, like Isaac AbuKarat has made a makeshift device that would help to lock thick doors. He then began making copies and made almost 60 of them.
New neighborhood watch teams, with special hats and shirts, were also formed as a grass-root effort to prevent anymore “unprecedented attack”. The team would patrol the streets from 8 pm to 12 am. The group will do the patrolling either in a bicycle or on foot and carries personal weapons. Tel Aviv is reported to have around 50 such teams with about 1,500 volunteers.
With inputs from Bloomberg.
