Israelis expressed relief and optimism on Sunday after the US President Donald Trump ordered air strikes on Iran, 10 days in a war that has widespread public support.
Despite daily nerve -shooting trips to bomb shelters and growing damage throughout the country, Israelis lay united behind the step of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Iran on 13 June.
Trump’s decision to allow overnight bombing of the nuclear facilities of Iran has offered further reassurance by the Israeli Air Force after more than a week of sorties.
“The war with Iran was inevitable. You knew it would happen sooner or later,” Claudio Hazan, a 62-year-old software engineer, told AFP in Central Jerusalem on Sunday.
“I hope it will shorten the war, because otherwise Israel would not stop in itself until they bombed that Fordo Place,” he explained, referring to the deeply buried Iranian nuclear site aimed at heavy American bombers.
Israelis have been brought down over the past 10 days, closed with companies, closed and people insisted on staying at home.
Few have slept a complete continuous night since the conflict broke out because of the screaming rocket warnings that flash on mobile phones on all times of the day.
“We woke up with a Sunday morning of alarms and then we saw that the US attacked,” David, a 43-year-old resident of Jerusalem, told AFP. “We are all happy that the US is borrowing a hand, it has always laid a hand.”
Israeli president Isaac Herzog told the BBC on Sunday that “now is a chance to come to a dialogue of peace, also a dialogue of peace between all nations in the region, including Israelis and Palestinians”.
– “God is with us” –
The advanced air defenses of Israel have kept Israeli villages and cities relatively safe and shot hundreds of Iranian missiles and drones that would otherwise have caused widespread destruction.
However, dozens have continued, with three more effects reported on Sunday morning in the northern port of Haifa and around the coast button of Tel Aviv.
According to official figures, at least 50 strikes have been recognized nationwide and 25 people have died.
When a rocket destroyed its modern apartment building in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, on Thursday, resident Renana complained to AFP that “it will take a long time until this building recovers.”
But she did not show a resentment against Netanyahu die Israeli troops in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and now Iran since the attack on Israel by the Palestinian Group Hamas in October 2023.
“The truth is that God is with us and the government must continue with what they do, and that is exactly what should have happened a long time ago,” Renana, who did not give her last name, told AFP.
– ‘sharp contrast’ –
The usually divided political scene of Israel has also been drawn up behind the Iran attack, a country generations of Israelis grew up as a threat to their existence.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is my political rival, but his decision to stock up on Iran is currently the right one,” wrote opposition leader Yair Lapid in a Jerusalem Post last week.
A study conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute in the days immediately after the first strikes of Israel on 13 June showed that 70 percent of Israelis supported war, although the results revealed a big gap.
There was 82 percent support among Jewish Israelis, while only 35 percent of the respondents from the Arab minority of Israel, who usually identify as Palestinian, were in favor.
Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli poll star and political analyst, said AFP that Israelis were much more united behind the Iran campaign than the grinding conflict in Gaza that many saw as a “dirty war”.
Netanyahu has been criticized for not securing the return of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and accused of extending the war for domestic political purposes.
He is also subject to an arrest warrant of the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Gaza, where nearly 56,000 people were killed, according to the Health Minister in the Hamas-Runned area.
“There is a very sharp contrast between how Israelis view the war in Gaza and how they look at this war with Iran,” Schindlin said.
However, she warned that sentiment could change if it becomes a long conflict.
ADP-ACC/DS/DCP
