It’s been nearly three weeks since the attacks and Israel seems to be a country transformed. The turnaround from a nation bifurcated by protests for and against judicial reform just last month to one united by social cohesion has been extraordinary. Yet, the trauma from the Oct. 7 terror attack unleashed by Hamas that killed 1,300 civilians remains.

I have just returned from a neighbor’s for an evening of hizuk (morale and spiritual reinforcement). A woman there with a son called up to the Gaza front said he advanced his December wedding date to the following night. We unanimously burst into celebratory song, wishing her mazal tov. The previous night we were at a shiva (a seven-day mourning). My friend and tour guide colleague Jo Lane reported that her mother, 84, who escaped Nazi Germany to reach Wales, had died of a broken heart. 

In the absence or news, rumors abound including an account of the not-so-secret negotiations in Qatar between Hamas, Israel and a seasoned American negotiator via the White House. Those talks aim to broker the release of the 224 hostages held in Gaza’s labyrinth of tunnels and to secure the entry of humanitarian aid via Egypt.

According to London’s Jewish News, the two-stage plan was put together by American-Israeli businessman and philanthropist Mordechai (Moti) Kahana in partnership with the White House, France and a Syrian adviser to Kahana’s company, Global Delivery Corporation. Kahana has previous experience in humanitarian rescue efforts in other war-torn nations such as Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine.

In the initial phase of the plan — whose details remain to be finalized with Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in exile in Qatar — water, medical supplies, baby food and hygiene products will be sent in to Gaza solely for civilian use. These goods — $20 million of which Kahana has stored in an American warehouse ready to be airlifted to Egypt — will be provided in exchange for the release of all hostages. These include Ethiopian-Israeli Avera Mengistu and Bedouin Arab Israeli Hisham al-Sayed, seized in 2014 and 2015, respectively, and the remains of IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul who were killed during the 2014 war in Gaza.

The second stage, according to Kahana, will mirror what Israel did in 1982 when the PLO leadership, including Yasser Arafat, were allowed by the IDF to leave besieged Beirut, Lebanon. Most settled in Tunisia.

What’s happening on the home front?

My hometown Jerusalem, at least for now, has received comparatively fewer rocket attacks from Gaza (certainly nothing compared to surrounding regions). Nearly all the incoming rockets have been neutralized by the Iron Dome interceptors.

In the first days of the war following the massacre, the capital was all but deserted. Many residents had been called to the reserves. Others were sheltering at home, in accordance with Home Front Command orders. Stores were closed.

These days, the streets are no longer empty and some commercial life has returned. But that impression of business-as-usual is illusory. There are zero tourists. Lodging in hotels, including the Dead Sea, Eilat and elsewhere, are tens of thousands of civilians evacuated from the Gaza periphery and areas along the Lebanese border.

Eugene and Nili, a couple originally from the former Soviet Union, have moved into our empty AirBnB apartment next door. Their apartment in Ashkelon was hit by rocket fire.