At 6:30 a.m. on October 7, 2023, Nir, a 16-year-old from the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, awoke to the sound of alarms outside her window warning of incoming rockets. Her city was under attack by bombs and rockets. She was overcome by panic and the smell of fire.
Soon after, all the electricity in her town was cut off, leaving her and her family without access to their television, the Internet, and the elevator in their building. She and her parents, sister, and dog went to the safe room in their apartment, then evacuated to the general shelter in their building.
“We heard a boom out of nowhere, and that was the rocket hitting our building,” said Nir, who is now staying with her cousins in Petah Tikva, a town outside Tel Aviv. (She later learned that the rocket landed in front of her building.) “I freaked out. I was very panicked. I didn’t know how to react. I was in shock.”
JTA – At about 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 7, 2023, Nir, a 16-year-old from the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, awoke to the sound of alarms outside her window warning her of incoming rockets. Her city was under attack by bombs and rockets. She was overcome by panic and the smell of fire.
Soon after, all the electricity in her town was cut off, leaving her and her family without access to their television, the Internet, and the elevator in their building. She and her parents, sister, and dog went to the safe room in their apartment, then evacuated to the general shelter in their building.
“We heard a boom out of nowhere, and that was the rocket hitting our building,” said Nir, who is now staying with her cousins in Petah Tikva, a city outside Tel Aviv. (She later learned that the rocket landed in front of her building.) “I freaked out. I was very panicked. I didn’t know how to react. I was shocked.”
Since then, Nir, who requested anonymity for her safety, said she feels nauseous and nervous every time she hears the sound of alarms or rockets. “I had a panic attack on Saturday, and now I’m in a better place, but I’m still nervous about everything,” she said. “Every footstep, every little noise I hear, I get nervous out of nowhere.”
Nir is one of many Israeli teenagers JTA spoke with who have struggled with their mental health since the war began. At least 1,350 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed when Hamas invaded that Saturday morning; 150-200 are missing and presumed captured. With the future unknown and the memories of past attacks fresh in their minds, Israeli teens are fighting their own battles.
Eliyah Hajjaj, a 15-year-old from Beersheba, a city 30 miles west of Gaza, has struggled to sleep since the attacks. “I can never calm down,” he said. “I only sleep three hours a day. I have nightmares every time. I am really scared.”
For teens like Nevo, who lives about three miles from the Gaza border, across which Hamas regularly launches rocket barrages, rockets are nothing new.
“It’s been like this since I can remember,” the 16-year-old said. (Nevo asked that his last name and city not be used out of concern for social media harassment.) He knew this time was different when his WhatsApp group chats began mentioning the presence of Hamas terrorists on Israeli soil.
Those terrorists tried to infiltrate his town, but were killed before they could, his parents explained.
While Nevo and his family remain physically unharmed, he knows teenagers and adults in his community who have been killed. “They came to kill citizens, to kill my friends, to kill me. They came to kill me,” Nevo said. “In my worst nightmares, I never imagined this situation.”
As a child, Nevo had nightmares that terrorists would invade his home.
Days into this war, Nevo continues to struggle emotionally. Activities Nevo used to enjoy, such as scrolling through Instagram, have become somber as his social media feeds fill with horrific images of violence and tragic reports of the dead and missing. Doing his homework is also a struggle as he cannot stop thinking about the recent tragedies.
Meanwhile, schools were closed after the attacks and were only scheduled to reopen online this week.
In an effort to cope, Nevo is helping those in his community. He cooks meals for families in need and plays with neighborhood children to help them stay distracted.
Further north, Tel Aviv teens Bar Mandel and Jessica Nasach have also turned to volunteering.
While Tel Aviv was out of range of the worst of the Hamas attacks, many of its residents were forced into shelters during the first days of the assault, while its normally bustling streets fell silent. To keep busy, many of its young citizens are eager to find ways to help the cause. Instead of sitting at home all day waiting for news, Bar, Nasach and several other Tel Aviv teens and adults have been cooking meals for IDF soldiers and others in need. The group volunteers at Shuk Tzafon, a popular Israeli market filled with restaurants that open their kitchens to prepare hot meals for soldiers.
Volunteering “has really helped me a lot because I don’t feel helpless. When I’m at home, I feel like I’m just waiting for something bad to happen. I feel terrible when I’m just sitting around doing nothing,” Mandel said.
So far, Mandel estimates that the group has prepared more than 3,000 meals, averaging about 800 a day. She and her group plan to continue preparing meals on weekdays for the time being.
Nasach feels guilty about being in relative safety compared to those living in the south. “You feel guilty that you can eat and sleep and others can’t,” the 16-year-old said.
All the teenagers are waiting to wake up from what feels like a walking nightmare. “We just want peace. We want to wake up in the morning at 6 a.m. and not hear alarms from nowhere and find out that people are being kidnapped,” said Nir, the teen from Ashkelon. “We just want to be in a very safe place, a quiet place.”
