Israelis and Lebanese await new phase of conflict

Ask Ophir Levy, 23, what it is like to wait — and wait — for Iran to deliver its much-touted punishment to Israel for twin assassinations in the region, and from the pool where she swims in Tel Aviv, she claims it is simply “annoying”.

Largely assured of her safety by the reinforced bomb shelter beneath and the Iron Dome missile defence system above, she adds a message for Iran’s supreme leader: “Tell that to Khamenei — it’s really annoying. Just do what you can, and we can move on.”

For all the bravado, her call reflects a region on edge, nerves fraying with anticipation. Some 200km north, in a Beirut shopping mall, Cherine Sikkar, 38, wishes much the same, just so she can stop “doomscrolling on her phone and crying under the blankets”.

“I kind of just want the war to start so we can get it over and done with,” she said. “That way we know what happens next and don’t have to keep watching and waiting and watching and waiting.”

It has been more than a week since Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed that the Islamic republic would avenge the humiliation of the confirmed Israeli killing of a leader from Iran-backed Hizbollah in Beirut, followed by the suspected Israeli killing of the political leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas in Tehran.

Since then, US troops and aircraft carriers have been manoeuvring into place; foreign ministers have assembled in Saudi Arabia; and the skies over Beirut have reverberated from the sonic booms of Israeli war planes.

Lebanese and Israelis are united in nervously awaiting a confrontation that could either mark just another alarming escalation in a long regional rivalry, or could be the first salvo in a devastating all-out war.

But as the minutes tick uneasily by, the waiting has become its own penance.

For Israelis, 10 months into a war with Hamas in Gaza to the south, the wait for a seemingly inevitable confrontation with the far more fearsome Hizbollah in the north has bred both gallows humour and an underlying dread.

“Israel’s waiting for a week is part of the punishment,” said Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah leader, on Tuesday night, as he chewed over the options for assaulting the Jewish state. “It’s part of the response. It’s part of the battle. Because this battle is psychological and one of morale and nerves, as well as weapons and blood.”

But what Nasrallah did not address is that he is also keeping his fellow Lebanese in similar anguish.

Caught between the Israeli military and Iran’s proxy Shia militant group, Lebanese civilians fear Israel’s counter-retaliation, or even a pre-emptive strike, without the protection of the sophisticated aerial defences and expensive underground bomb shelters that are expected to keep most of Israel’s civilians safe.

Beirut residents oscillated between panic and resignation on Wednesday, with some people clearing supermarkets’ aisles of canned goods and water, while others worked on their tans at the beach.

“We are all disassociating in different ways,” said one shopper who was stockpiling canned corn and baby wipes for an impending war. 

Those with the option decamped to areas in Lebanon’s north that are deemed safer, while others stayed with relatives in different parts of Beirut, further away from likely Israeli targets in Hizbollah strongholds, but still densely packed with civilians.

For 10 months the population has already watched nervously as Israel and Hizbollah traded intensifying fire across the frontier. Those attacks have been largely confined to the border areas, but the fear is that the next phase of fighting could be much worse.

In Lebanon, a video of a podcast recording that captured a Tuesday sonic boom went viral, as a guest on the show quickly identified the shocking noise. Asked how she knew within seconds that it wasn’t something else, she said because “we’ve gotten used to it”.

As in Israel, memes and WhatsApp stickers arose to meet the moment. One featured a person who had wet themselves, with a caption below it reading: “It’s normal, just a sonic boom. Nothing to be afraid of.”

In Israel, most people have stayed where they were, poised between helplessness and relative optimism.

Hizbollah’s rockets can now reach the entire country; Houthi drones have circled the Red Sea and penetrated downtown Tel Aviv; and Iran’s missiles have been shown to be capable of hitting even the most defended air base in Israel.

But on the other hand, in a previous retaliatory attack by Iran in April following a deadly strike on the republic’s diplomatic compound in Syria, most of its missiles were shot down with help from the US and its allies. Many flights have been cancelled, but the beaches are open.

Jokes abound: after a social media account that publishes Nasrallah’s speeches paraphrased his warning to Israel as “maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a week”. Israelis swarmed the replies.

“Me starting a diet,” said one.

Meanwhile, as the pressure was building, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implored his fellow citizens to remain “level-headed and composed”.

At the same time his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, watched troops prepare for potential battle in Lebanon and warned that Nasrallah may “drag Lebanon into paying extremely heavy prices — they can’t even imagine what might happen”.

With little news from the frantic behind-the-scenes diplomacy taking place across continents, rumours and speculation are rife, and civilians are as uninformed as senior government officials.

“It’s going to be tonight,” said a barista in Jaffa on Monday. “I can feel it.”

“Be careful,” texted a government official to an FT journalist the same day. “It’s tonight.”

It wasn’t. Lebanon and Israel lived to wait another day.