The colorful paper chains I hung in our sukkah two years ago, and promised to take down only when the hostages came home, haven’t fallen apart with time. They remind me what can be seen through a temporary roof, beneath a sky full of stars.
How did it happen that, specifically, the country where a distinctly right-wing government stands and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is considered a devoted Israel supporter, placed the Gaza war at the top of the public agenda?
"The border is breached, and nobody really deals with it! The authorities' disregard is a disgrace. That we haven't been hurt yet – it's a miracle. But the possibility that this will turn on us at any moment is tangible."
When the newspaper headline, just one day before October 7, warned of expected protests at the Simchat Torah celebrations in Tel-Aviv with the title “Simchat Torah War,” a war did indeed come, only of a very different kind.
Families of the hostages, IDF soldiers, Israel’s national basketball team – along with the lunar eclipse. Just after the start of the new year, Israel Hayom photographers selected their pictures of the year.
As Yom Kippur approaches, I cannot help but return to that moment – October 7. The day everything turned upside down. The day my world shattered, when everything I knew about myself, my role as a mother, as a citizen, as a human being, was shaken to its core.
The helicopter that first flew in 1975, designed to stop Soviet tanks on the plains of Europe, is now shooting down Iranian Shahed drones over Israel and Lebanon – an example of the adaptability of a weapon serving in 18 armies. Until October 7, Israel had been reducing its attack helicopter fleet, but the Hamas assault reversed that trend. Today, Israel is seeking to double its fleet. Fifty years after its maiden flight, the Apache has not become obsolete – it has adapted.
Benny Gantz’s declaration, the limping son of the opposition, that he does not intend to boycott Netanyahu, detaches him from the bloc and may prove to be the move that decides the coming elections.
Officially, Dr. Sebastian Gorka is the deputy national security adviser and the president’s adviser on counterterrorism. Unofficially, he is one of the senior officials closest to Trump. In an interview coinciding with his visit to Israel, he offers a rare glimpse into America’s new counterterrorism doctrine and shares the most dramatic moments from Trump’s Situation Room.
The IDF is suffering from munition shortages, raising questions about its ability to carry out its missions now and in the future, a reality that did not stop the prime minister from deciding to continue the war for the time being. Israel has stepped on the mine of recognition of a Palestinian state, a mine that, paradoxically, could have been dismantled easily.
