Dizengoff Street, in the center of Tel Aviv, long and full of bars, was a party last night. 2024 is not 2024 for Jews or Muslims but the middle-aged Telavivi and below celebrated it by the hundreds with loud music from local groups, full glasses, staring at the television waiting for the countdown to reach 00 :00 hours.
And 00:00 hours arrived: New Year’s, lots of hugs, louder music, lots of dancing and the occasional lost streamer.
New Year’s normality lasted that long. Large, white, bloody teddy bears lay on nearby pedestrian benches so as not to forget the 129 hostages still held captive by Hamas after October 7. The police were guarding the street with weapons in hand. In the south of the city, rocket alerts sounded. By dozens. In cascade, against which the anti-aircraft defenses acted. In Gaza, Israeli warplanes bomb the strip and fighting is reported in the streets of the center and south of the enclave.
The Israeli Defense Forces confirmed it on X, formerly Twitter. Hamas also confirmed it on social networks, specifying that its military wing, the Al Qasam brigades, had bombed Tel Aviv and its outskirts with M90 rockets in response to the Israeli offensive and the death of Gazan civilians.
Yesterday, the last day of the year, the Israeli army announced that it will soon withdraw five combat brigades participating in the ground invasion of the strip. Yesterday, the last day of the year 2023, the media debated the possibility of a new truce to free more hostages.
The words of the ultra minister Bezalel Smotrich opting for a Gaza limited to 100,000-200,000 Gazans instead of the current more than two million, the massive protests in Palestine due to the more than 20,000 deaths in the strip, indicate, like the rockets over the center of Israel and Gaza for the New Year, they say that for now, nothing.
